Dramatists of to-day : Rostand, Hauptmann, Sudermann, Pinero, Shaw, Phillips, Maeterlinck, being an informal discussion of their significant work

M/6/

• DRAMATISTS
OF TO-DAY

ROSTAND, HAUPTMANN, SUDERMANN,
PINERO, SHAW, PHILLIPS,
MAETERLINCK

Being an Informal Discussion of their
Significant Work

BY

EDWARD EVERETT HALE, JR.

OK THE ^

UNIVERSITY 11

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1905

/m\/o

Copyright, 1905

BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

Published Afril, tqos

THE MBRSHON COMPANY PRESS,
RAHWAY, N. J.

Mh(m

Three or four passages in the following pages
appeared originally in The Dial, which used to
give me opportunities to write on these matters,
for which I have always been grateful. I have
not thought it necessary to break the continuity
by quotation marks or acknowledgment. Ulti-
mately it is due to the indulgent kindness of the
editor of The Dial that these papers came into
being at all, and where there is so much general
obligation, it is not important to note a few par-
ticular paragraphs.

Digitized by tine Internet Archive

in 2007 witin funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

^v>^^^^

http://www.arcliive.org/details/dr'amatistsoftodaOOhalericli

CONTENTS

Paob

A Note on Standaeds of Criticism • . 1

Rostand 12

Hauptmann .•••«. 37

sudeemann •••••• 62

PiNEEO . . • . . • .83

Beenaed Shaw 102

Stephen Phillips 126

Maeteelinck ...♦•. 147

OuE Idea of Teagedy .... 176

Appendix ...... 203

Index . . • • • • . 226

A NOTE ON STANDARDS OF
CRITICISM

Of old a " Critick " studied the masters In any
given form of art and thus learned the rules of
that art. He might then consider whatever came
to his notice and pronounce It good or bad. We
commonly do much the same sort of thing now,
when we read merely for fun. We have, every
one of us, got together, consciously or uncon-
sciously, some Ideas on what's what as to novels or
short stories or plays or pictures, and when we
read or hear or see anything, we Instinctively form
some judgment of It according to whatever those
ideas may be. The process we perhaps express
by saying, " I don't pretend to know anything
about criticism, but I know what I like." Whether
we acknowledge It or not, we commonly form our
opinion about current books and plays on some
such basis.

This mode of judgment, still popular with the
general reader, was abandoned by many brilliant
critics some time ago. It seemed foolish to com-

2 STANDARDS OF CRITICISM

pare indifferently artists of all countries and
ages, to call Shakespeare a barbarian because he
was not Sophocles, or Sophocles an old grand-
mother because he was not Shakespeare. And
with the growing idea of natural development in
every line of human interest came that form of
criticism which seeks to explain every work of art
by the circumstances, which views it, not in and
by itself, but in its coming to be. The idea has
taken all forms: Herder in Germany, Mme. de
Stael, Chateaubriand, Sainte-Beuve, Taine in
France developed the idea, not only as applied to
the character of any individual artist, but as the
expression of the spirit of national life. Morelli
immensely influenced the modem criticism of
painting by . bringing the matter down to the
psychic and physical habits and powers of any
given artist, and there have been many minor
efforts to do the same thing in literature. The
main idea is in all cases the same : the work of art
— picture, poem, play — is the result of certain
forces; if you would rightly understand the art,
first get at the forces. This view may seem to be
historical or scientific rather than critical; if
everything is just what it had to be in the due
course of nature, can we call one thing better than
another.^ Taine was extremely ingenious in offer-
ing an answer to this question.

STANDARDS OF CRITICISM 3

The world was getting rather accustomed to
this Idea when it was called upon to accept an-
other. Ruskin proclaimed that art was a teacher,
and drew away after him a third part of the art-
lovers of the world into a place whence it has been
hard to escape. In time it appeared, however,
that it was not especially necessary that art
should be a teacher : the significance of the earlier
criticism of Walter Pater lies in the fact that he
saw that art was a power working upon the human
spirit. This is so obviously the case — indeed
Hazlitt had assumed it a century ago — that it
was natural that the idea should be carried to its
logical conclusion by somebody. Anatole France
presumably came upon it himself, for it is the
most natural accompaniment of his delightful
effort to reduce everything to 0 = 0. And many
others have used the idea with great effect, notably
Mr. Berenson, who, having found out to the utter-
most jot and. tittle how Italian art came into
existence, now goes on and tells us what it was
and has been to the world, and what it may be
to us.

The drama is more a personal than a theoret- /
ical matter. Every one goes to see plays; every
one is in some way or other affected by them. In
most cases the effect will be no more than comes
from a period of rest to a spirit wearied by the rest-

x

4 STANDARDS OF CRITICISM

Jess work or play or ennui of life from day to day*
A relaxation, a recess, a recreation; such is the
theatre to most. But even as such it must be
something more. If this man always does one
thing and that man does something else, they will
certainly differ in time. If one man commonly
^oes for an evening's amusement to so-called
vaudeville, and another for an evening's amuse-
ment commonly goes to see Shakespeare (suppos-
ing he had the chance), there will surely be some
difference finally, other things being equal, be-
tween the two. The theatre is too powerful a stim-
ulus for any spirit at all sensitive to escape it
wholly. Let us look at its possible effects.

This, at least, is what I commonly find myself
doing. No one will entirely avoid being dogmatic
or descriptive; no one will avoid some thought of
environment or influence or development. But the
main thing is the effect upon the spirit. I shall
not of course emulate the example of Ruskin, with
his notion that art is didactic and that one must
become as a little child at the feet of prophets,
who at the present day are as apt to resemble
Hosea as Isaiah. Nor shall I follow the steps of
the charming arch-sceptic of our time, which lead
to that void of absolute zero in which his spirit
bathes with such obvious refreshment. I remain
ou an isthmus of a middle state. Somewhere about

STANDARDS OF CRITICISM 5

halfway between the holy mountain and the abyss
do I mount beside the puppet booth and give, as
though a barker, some comment on the dramatists
of our day.

From such a standpoint no one will expect
broad and comprehensive surveys; the real pleas-
ure and stimulus in a mountain view, say, or in-
deed any other view, does not consist in a mastery
of all the details; it is something very different.
A delightful landscape charms one at the moment
and makes itself thenceforward an influence in the
mind, so that one is happier at one or another
moment for the thinking of it. So it is with other
things in life, and especially with art; one is im-
mensely struck by a picture, it may be, and it
remains In one's thoughts a long, long time,
having part in all sorts of unknown psychoses;
one hears music, and a melody or a phrase stays by
one, often running in the head in very trivial
fashion, but often serving finer ends. To discern
and analyse these things is something that crit-
icism has hardly tried to accomplish, but it is cer-
tainly a thing to be done. The purists always
think they can tell you what correct pronuncia-
tion ought to be, but it is really necessary, first,
to know what everyday pronunciation is. Before
one can lay down the law as to how one ought to

6 STANDARDS OF CRITICISM

feel about a drama, it is but reasonable to try to
find out how one really does feel.

And this IS somehow not a very easy matter:
it would seem as though people after a play pre-
ferred to think rather than feel. It is not very
difficult to think about a play that one has seen
or read, and that may be the reason that most
people do so. But note theatrical criticism and
see how little consists of impression, save in the
most general terms, and how much of knowledge,
opinion, gossip. It is true that one must have a
good deal in the way of facts and recollections;
the impressions made by a play upon a mind like
Locke's white paper will not be of much interest
in a complex civilisation. One must do a good
deal in the way of description and analysis of
character, construction, situation, for that is
often the only way that one can present one's im-
pressions, and those things are immensely inter-
esting and valuable for themselves or in relation
to other criticism. All is, they are not the main
thing here : if they were, I should have to apologise
for many omissions and, I suppose, not a few com-
missions. No one, I hope, will carp at my neglect-
ing academic system and completeness. I have so
much lecturing on literature from day to day, so
much of the academic way of looking at things,
that it is really a means to mental health to do

STANDARDS OF CRITICISM 7

something else. There are many other dramatists
of our day who ought to have their part In any
real treatise on the current drama. From the
ferocious Strindberg on the north to the equally
ferocious d'Annunzio on the south, from the sym-
bolic Mr. Yeats on the other side of the water
to our own Mr. Clyde Fitch, whose cymbals tinkle
rather differently, there are several dramatists as
interesting as some of whom I speak. And then
there is Ibsen; no one can neglect him, nor, in-
deed, have I done so ; for although Ibsen is not
precisely a dramatist of our day, he is a remark-
able influence on the drama of our day. To us in
America Ibsen belongs to the past or to the future,
surely not to the present. And since there are many
books and essays on Ibsen, I have thought it as well
not to attempt any new estimate of his work. In
fact these papers make no attempt at a complete
and systematic view. In trying to form such a
view of the work of our time, much of the freshness
and spontaneity would be lost, and even then tne
game would not be worth the candle, for in a few
years something would turn up that would make
what had been systematic seem very desultory.
Current criticism should, I suppose, result from
something pretty definite in the way of ideas, but
I doubt if it need result in anything definite in the
way of system.

8 STANDARDS OF CRITICISM

A play presents its material to us in a concen-
trated form attained by certain devices which,
though literary in character, are usually devel-
oped from the necessities of the stage of the
period. When the play is actually presented on
the stage, its effect is heightened by many devices
which are not Kterary in character, as acting,
stage-setting, and so forth. It is interesting to
note these devices, these ways in which the im-
pression is made upon us, to point them out, to
talk of them. There is an immense amount of
very interesting stuff here; indeed, it makes the
greater part of technical dramatic criticism. But
it is all only means to an end ; the real end is that
we ourselves shall be affected somehow or other
by the play. If we are nowise affected, or affected
in a way we dislike, we might as well stay at home ;
or if we are at home reading the play, we might
as well read something else or nothing at all. Our
interest in these contemporary dramatists is that
we get something from them.

This something, in the case of a play of any
value, always lasts for a while, perhaps a day or
two only, perhaps merely during supper after the
theatre, but generally longer. To state precisely
the general nature of this effect in simple lan-
guage is not at all feasy ; I do not know that it has
ever been very systematically analysed. Neglect-

STANDARDS OF CRITICISM 9'

ing, however, such accidents as a sweet smile, a
phrase of music or of words, a beautiful dress, we
may say that we shall usually have in mind a bit
of human experience. This experience may be, in
its general circumstance, familiar to us, as in
" Candida," or it may be quite unfamiliar or even
impossible, as in " Die versunkene Glocke," but
human experience it is, or it does not remain long
with us.

Just what we do with this new possession will;
differ according as we differ, but the main things
that we do will be one or another of these follow-
ing. We may deal with it as we should with any
piece of real life, laugh or cry over it at the time,
think about it and talk about it afterwards as
though it were real. How was it with Mrs. Tan-
queray.'' Was it right or wrong that the world
should have used her as it did? Our views on
these matters may very probably be influenced by
the dramatist, but we commonly neglect that con-
sideration and think and talk as we should of real
people. Or next, we may be pleased with some-
thing in the play because, though not real life, it
is such an absolute resemblance of it. Miss
Prossy, for instance, and " Prossy's complaint "
will give a thrill of pleasure because they so per-
fectly resemble something that may not in itself
be so very interesting to us* It is very fine, we

10 STANDARDS OF CRITICISM

say, because it is so true. Thirdly, this human
experience may concentrate itself, as it were, in a
figure or situation that will appear to us to imply
or signify something of importance, which figure
or situation will recur to the mind at one time or
another with a good deal of the original feeling
with which we first experienced it. This is one
reason why Mme. Bernhardt is such a powerful
ally to any dramatist : she readily makes herself a
dramatic figure.

This last process, I rather think, is the most
specifically connected with the drama. The first
is a little naive ; it reminds one of the many stories
about inexperienced persons in the eighteenth cen-
tury or in frontier towns or early in life, who
thought that the play actually was real life. It
is something which has no especial connection with
the drama; it may occur well enough with any
form of representative art just as it may with life
itself. The second is a great pleasure undoubt-
edly; it has been noted by many an analyst be-
/ore and after Pope ; still it gets from the drama
only what one may get from all literature and all
graphic art as well. The last seems to me the
pleasure particularly dramatic, for just this
result the drama is particularly fitted to give by
all its especial powers and devices, and to quite
the same degree no one of the other arts can give

STANDARDS OF CRITICISM 11

it. Something of the kind we have from painting
and from fiction and poetry, but the drama com-
bines the powers of the two. It gives us figures
for the eye and for the imagination at the same
time. To have such impressions is in itself an
aesthetic pleasure of the purest kind. What re-
sults from it is another matter.

ROSTAND

When M. Edmond Rostand became a member
of the French Academy, he was accepted as a man
of letters of the first rank by a body which has
made mistakes, but still holds the respect of the
world. His reception was therefore an event. I
read that even from the outside of the Palais de
I'lnstitut one could " measure all the importance
of that ceremony." To perform that feat, my
authority continues, it was enough, at least for
an observer well up in his " Tout Paris," to see
the people going in and coming out ; the different
persons of importance in " les mondes litteraire,
artistique, scientifique, aristocratique, diploma-
tique," who formed groups " d'un charactere sug-
gestif et d'un interet documentaire." Not being
very strong myself in " Tout Paris," I must con-
fess that the only one of these groups presented by
rillustration that was of real interest to me was
that consisting of M. Rostand himself iQ a cocked
hat and a cloak, with a sword sticking from under
it, preceded by an usher. And from a considera-
tion of the other groups, I incline to think that the

12

ROSTAND Xa

importance of the occasion may be measured, per-
haps, but not fully estimated, by a consideration
of the persons who were present at it, although it
is of interest to be told that there were more guests
than there have been at any such occasion in the
last half-century.

In fact various writers have estimated the sig-
nificance of the event in a totally different manner.
They have considered it as bringing forward the
question of M. Rostand's position from the stand-
point of literature.

From the standpoint of literature it will be ob-
served, rather than from the standpoint of the
theatre. For it seems obvious that a man need
not have any position in literature by virtue of
theatrical masterpieces alone. Other positions he
will have thereby, but not a position in literature ;
for that one must produce books that people will
read. Literature is a matter of letters rather
than of sounds, one may say. A man may be a
great talker, but only rarely does one gain a place
in literature by conversation alone; Bos wells are
too rare. One may be a great orator, but even
so, one is known in literature by the printed form,
as when Macaulay wrote out his speeches, ten and
twenty years after he made them, not in the pre-
cise words he had used, which were irrevocably lost,
but in words which he might have used. So with

14 ROSTAND

the dramatist. If his work have anything of
Kterature in it, it will be something that will stand
the test of type.

The theatre, undoubtedly, produces often mat-
ters that are most delightful when put in book
form, but the theatre, as such, is not concerned
in that fact. Of the innumerable forms of the
drama, many have Kttle about them that can be
called literature, — melodrama and farce, as a rule,
the clever extempore drama of Italy and other
lands, the pantomime which often has a strikingly
dramatic quality without a single word, and, we
may add, the now extinct Weber and Fields bur-
lesque, which seems to have been a theatrical genre
of great interest to the student of the stage, in its
possibilities at least.

This matter is clear enough to the keen-eyed
critics of M. Rostand's own country. They looked
upon his reception into the Academy with interest,
because, as they said, although he had dominated
the purely theatrical criticism, he had not, up to
that time, wholly won over the critics of literature.
" If the people of the theatre can hardly speak of
M. Rostand without a sort of amorous emotion in
the voice, literary people have been able, on the
contrary, to make him the subject of a more un-
moved criticism." Such at least was the view of M.
Gustave Kahn, who went on to consider " la

ROSTAND 15

valeur Utteraire " of the author of " Cyrano "
and " L'Aiglon."

I must leave M. Kahn to his own opinions, for
it is surely none of my business to controvert or
agree with the ideas of a French critic on the
position in French literature of a French drama-
tist. But the point is noteworthy in this way : M.
Rostand had a great success, out of France at
least, for reasons that were somewhat non-theat-
rical, or that were at least supposed to be. In
Germany the critics, at least, laid stress upon his
ideas and in this country something of the sort was
the case. Not that it was not delightful to see his .
plays at the theatre; not that, had he presented
his ideas in other forms, they would have been as
successful as they were; neither of these supposi-
tions is the case. But given the theatrical success
of M. Rostand, a thing that he possessed in com-
mon, for instance, with Mr. Clyde Fitch or Mr.
David Belasco, that which was the staying quality,
outside of France at least, was the literature and
not the extreme theatrical skill.

Of course many of those most ready or compe-
tent to speak on this subject are of a very different
opinion. But what will you have ? A man cannot
be always thinking like other people, he must wan-
der off by himself sometimes. And if, in such wan-
derings, his views are false or foolish, the best

16 ROSTAND

thing to do is to speak tHem out, for then he will
be corrected by those who are wiser. So I offer
my view of the literary element and quality in the
work of M. Rostand with perfect cheerfulness,
even though it is very different from that of — ^well,
various people of consideration. And there is cer-
tainly pleasure in looking over the work of M. Ros-
tand, as though he were not a successful play-
wright who maybe seen (let us hope, again) at the
theatre, presented by the most charming or the
most dominating of the actresses of the day, but
rather — what shall I say? — rather as though he
were one of the great dramatists of the literature
of the past, whose work is now withdrawn from
the glare of the footlights and enclosed silently
between covers, for the delight, not of the ground-
ling or the man from the street, but of the pale
student under the midnight bulb or the member of
a popular literary club.

In M. Rostand's first work for the stage, " Les
Romanesques," he was surely attractive, but not
very much more. A writer who thinks that in that
charming little play we have M. Rostand " tout
entier, ou il est le meilleur, dans la picaresque
et la funambulesque," seems to miss so much
suggested by the later plays that one is tempted
to ask: Is it really there, all this that we think
moves us.'^ or can it be that we are reading into

ROSTAND 17

the work of the poet ideas which were nothing to
him and thereby neglecting the very things that
were in his own mind the real ones? Yet I shall
for the moment believe that it is not so, and go on
to say that " Les Romanesques '* is not what might
be expected of the author of " Cyrano de Berge-
rac." Not because it is slight, nor because it is
little more than attractive, but_because it is a deli-
cate satire upon the tribe of romaacers In general.
Percinet and Sylvette, two young people who live
on estates separated by a high wall, are full of a
fine desire for colour, and beauty, and charm. They
long for a wonderful life and condemn the com-
monplace. Their fathers appreciate their dispo-
sition, too, and, not unwilling to pose a bit them-
selves, they affect to be bitter enemies. The lovers
are transported into the seventh heaven and be-
come Romeo and Juliet. How can they be united?
They suggest ridiculously impossible plans, and
then their fathers humour them with a scheme of
their own. It is delightful while they think it
genuine, but when they find out that they have been
tricked they are enraged. Sylvette refuses to be
married and Percinet goes forth to seek for adven-
ture in the world. Of course he returns and the
play ends happily, as the saying is.

M. Rostand's great triumph was in romance.
Is it to be said that to begin with a burlesque on

18 ROSTAND

romance and to succeed with a romantic triumph
shows a lack of sincerity ?

That is not just the way to put it. Men do not
often jest at what they deem great. But they do
jest (and often very bitterly, as Rostand does
not) at the world's perversions of what they deem
great. . Rostand believes in romance, let us say,
but he has his laugh at the romancers. Did not
Sir Walter make fun of Julia Mannering?

These charming lovers are doubtless silly; they
think they must have exquisite mystery, recondite
sensation, something strange, out-of-the-way, fas-
cinating, anything in short that they have not
got. But so it is also with their everyday fathers :
they also think they will be satisfied with what
they have not, but when they have it, Pasquinot is
bored at Bergamin's watering pot, and Bergamin
is bored at Pasquinot's always having a button off
his waistcoat. Youth is one thing, age is another,
but both, in so far as they substitute dreams for
reality, are fair food for wit.

But what is reality ? And here Percinet speaks
possibly for M. Rostand.

** It was real for us who thought it real.

Sylvette. No. My being carried off, like your
duel, was all made-up.

Percinet. Your fear was not, madame.'*

The mind that is sincere makes the reality, but

/

people are too ready with the conventional com-
monplace as with the conventional romance. Ro-.
mance itself may be real enough if it only be real
romance and not the conventional, the make-believe,
the fashionable. Percinet on the road, Sylvette in
the garden, learn that life is not made up of.
phrases and attitudes.

This was the jj^ff ^-hftt ^^^ "Rpah'stg and the
Naturalists and the rest had always had in mi^ j.
They had laughed at the old romance and its cos-
tumes and properties, its phrases and attitudes.
They themselves presented truth.

So would Rostand, only he would present truth
differently: the realists presented truth by its
ever-varying myriad circumstance^, he would pre-
sent it by its essence, its idea, its type. Hence
" La Princesse Lointaine."

In " La Princesse Lointaine " we have the ideal-
ist, the ultra-romantic Rudel, faithful to the
very door of death to the Princess whom he has
never seen. But we also have the Princess, too,
and she is not faithful. She fondles the idea of
an absent lover devoted to her image, and when she
hears from the redoubtable Bertrand that her
lover is at hand sick to death, awaiting her on his
mattress laid on deck, she will not go to him. And
why? The subtle Sorismonde suggests a reason.
" You will not see him who was dear to you in the-

^0 ROSTAND

divine splendour of a dream, because you would
not see him in the horrible haggardness of the fact ;
you would keep the recollection of your love still
noble."

" Ah, yes ! " says the Princess, " that is the
only reason."

But it is not really the contrast of the vision-
ary love and the haggard fact that moves her.
It is the contrast between the imaginary love and
the actuality of the passion that she feels for the
messenger.- Sorismonde tells her that she passes
from a dream into real life. She says herself that
she denies the pale flower of the dream for the
flower of love. But when the experiment is made
it appears that the flower of love, that the actual-
ity of life, has been bought at too high a price,
that there was something even more real in the im-
agination, in the dream, in the romance. Squar-
ciafico cannot understand such a thing when it
occurs in his own humorous accompaniment to
the lyric motive. He grasps it no better than the
average realist. " But I am opening your eyes ! "
he says to the sailors. " And suppose we prefer
to keep them closed? " they say in their blundering
faith, not diff^ering much from many readers of
Zola. It is only when she has given up the passion
of actuality, and returned to the old ideal that she
believed in, that Melissande finds herself on firm

ROSTAND n

ground. At the end she knows the one thing
needful.

" La Princesse Lointaine '* was not successful
upon the stage, I believe, and it is not wholly con-
vincing here and there when one reads it. That
goes rather without saying. Had it been a first-
rate play, M. Rostand would have been famous be-
fore " Cyrano." There is much that is beautiful
in " La Princesse Lointaine." The indomitable
hero, the faithful sailors, the audacious quest, the
intensity of the moment of action, and a very ex-
quisite reconciliation to the tragic end remain in
one's mind and may well outweigh a lightness and
over-refinement of handling. At least one is im-
pressed with the feeling that here is one who can
say his word on the deep things of life and give
his imagining the form of beauty. And here is a
word spoken with no uncertain voice for the power
of romance.

As to " La Samaritaine," that is certainly a
matter rather hard for the average Anglo-Saxon
to handle. It is hard to understand the mental
attitude which conceived the play. It is of course
not the simplicity which presented much the same
thing five centuries before, in the mystery plays.
But then it is hardly the balmy scepticism with
which another Frenchman, some time since, offered
the world a Galilean idyl in exchange for an

22 ROSTAND

inspired Gospel. However we take it, though^
we have a play made from an episode in the career
of the greatest idealist the world has ever seen.
To my ears, however, all that rings true in the
play is that which reminds me of words otherwise
long familiar. The play was not unsuccessful, but
excited no great interest.

It was at the very end of the year 1897 that
" Cyrano de Bergerac " was produced and at once
achieved an immense success in Paris, and not very
long after, throughout Europe and America. It
was a great day for Romance, a second " Her-
nani.'^

In the history of the literature of the nineteenth
century Cyrano de Bergerac will be a well-remem-
bered figure — would be something much more than
that, except that people do not read plays as much
as they read novels. But even as it is, Cyrano de
Bergerac is, and will remain, one of the great
figures which the French literature of our time
offers the world. As we look back, any one of us,
into the vista of our earlier days, and recognise
the figures that arise from the readings of our
youth, the first to strike us, when we think of our
early acquaintance with French literature, is the
/figure of the heroic d'Artagnan. Or is it Con-
suelo.'^ Never mind — the elder Dumas and Greorge
Sand were the great French writers of our earlier

ROSTAND 23

days, as they were of an earlier part of the cen-
tury. It must have been later in life that we be-
came acquainted with the Comedie Humaine and
Marguerite Gautier, with Madame Bovary and the
Rougon-Macquart family. Whether it were so or
not in our own individual youth, it was practically
so with the youth of our time. To readers nour-
ished on Byron and Scott, France gave the " Three
Musketeers " and " Monte Cristo," " Mauprat ''
and " Consuelo." Then came the turn of the tide,
and a generation brought up on Dickens and
Thackeray and George Eliot put aside childish
things and were thrilled by the tragedies of Bal-
zac, Dumas fils, Flaubert, Zola, Of course there
were other realists, too, — realists everywhere, —
but these were the men who represented France,
and who created the typical characters that seize
the imagination and recollection of all.

Then, as the century was coming to an end,
France presented another figure, — and that not
realistic, but romantic again, — presented it to a
world that was ready to enjoy romance once more.
Just as a generation fed on Scott welcomed
d'Artagnan, so a generation fed on Stevenson
welcomed Cyrano de Bergerac. The pendulum
had swung back.

When, after the duel in the first act, a brilliant
and heroic musketeer strides out of the crowd and

M ROSTAND

shakes the victorious Cyrano by the hand and dis-
appears, the incident is more significant than the
audience appreciates. " Who is that gentle-
man ? " says Cyrano to Cuigy . " It is M.
d'Artagnan," says he, and Cyrano turns round;
but the older hero is gone, and Cyrano holds the
attention alone. The two are alike and are dif-
ferent. Both are heroes who fire the old-time
savage element of the soul, — Gascons, swordsmen,
indomitable, men of the compelling word and the
convincing stroke, hot-blooded, honourable, heroic.
But there is also a difference: one is striking,
brilliant, magnificent, and the other is almost
-4zrotesque. He is cruelly grotesque; there is
nothing to lighten it; it is nothing one can pity,
like a hump or a club-foot; nothing one can
delude oneself into thinking fine, like a mountain
belly and a rocky face or a Rochester* sort of
hideousness; nothing that one can fancy is sig-
nificant, like a birthmark or a distorted mouth.
All these things the world would forgive or for-
get. Here is something ridiculous, something
that would make any of us shiver and writhe if
we saw it by our fireside. Here is something that
touches us cynical, susceptible, bantering people^
touches us in a very tender place.

And yet one swallows it, and with it all minor
matters. Cyrano might, by an enemy, be called a

ROSTAND 25

bully and a braggart, but that possibility is
quite lost in our general sympathy. We do not
think of that any more than of his nose; we feel
only that he is a noble figure.. This is rather a
curious thing. It is the result of Realism^ I take
it. In the old, old fairy tale, the beast stopped
being a beast when he was loved. The monster
became Cupid. But Realism pricked that bubble,
and we recognise to-day even in literature, as a
rule, that human nature is, and will long continue
to remain human, '^f^ ^U8t accept the strange
mixture of the god and the animah. We must rec-
ognise that the old-time dreams are dreams —
beautiful, encouraging, inspiring, to be remem-
bered and to be thankful for, but not truths that
we shall ever know. Realism fixed upon us the
pre-eminent thought of our time that the triumph
of the:^. spirit is d^ffpit^ fKa^flp-gk., and the new
Romanticism profited by the lesson. Our English
romancers — Mr. Stanley Weyman is a good exam-
ple of a hundred — did not quite dare. They were
conscious that their heroes must not be the old-time
impossibilities, but they compromised, as a rule,
by having their heroes chumps, stupid though
well-meaning, and of course successful at the end.
They did not dare to go to the impossible extreme
which so often makes the type. M. Rostand did
dare to do so, and succeeded.

^ ROSTAND

Is it a curious thing this swinging over to Ro-
mance? We used to think that romance was some-
thing for children. They read about d'Artagnan
fighting duels or Ivanhoe in the tournaments, while
their elders read (aloud) Anthony TroUope's ac-
counts of everyday life reaching the culmination of
excitement in a rattling fox-hunt. And then sud-
denly we found that the tide had turned. Not sud-
denly, perhaps, for long ago I remember my in-
ivard wonder when a man whose taste I esteemed
told me of his joy in " King Solomon's Mines.'*
No, it was not sudden, for no change in taste is sud-
den, but it was sure nevertheless, so that it is per-
haps not the less curious.

Still we may ask, Is the new Romance the same
as the old? Is Scott the same as Stevenson? Is
'** Cyrano " the same as " Hernani '' ?

Certainly Stevenson is not Scott. He is not so
large a man for one thing, but for another he is
not of the same kind. So far as real life is con-
cerned there is no comparison, Scott is the only
one to think of. But so far as romance is con-
cerned, there is little enough comparison either.
Incomplete as Stevenson is, powerless often to ex-
press his own convictions, he never tried to present
figures as empty of real significance as the Master
of Ravenswood and the Disinherited Knight. He
sought for the romance of the spirit and not for

ROSTAND 27

the external romance of costume and circumstance
that satisfied Scott. In fact, Realism has had its
effect, for it has made people more serious.

Cyrano is surely a character for the playwright.
" Mais quel geste," he says. It surely was a good
attitude, — ^just why who can divine? — that throw-
ing the bag of crowns on the stage. Nor was Cy-
rano ever at a loss for such attitudes. He is quite
without affectation when he sets forth to march
through Old Paris at the head of that strange
procession of musicians and soldiers and ac-
tresses, as well as when the Spanish officer asks:
" Who are these so determined on death? " he
replies : " Ce sont les cadets de Gascogne ! " and
charges the crowd of Imperialists with the few
that are left.

Such things are characteristic of him. He must
do them. We cold-blooded creatures do not un-
derstand such things. They seem perhaps sense-
less to us and foolhardy, we do not know what
they mean. This melodramatic character thrills
us perhaps, but we cannot sympathise because we
cannot interpret. To us Cyrano is an actor, and
we Anglo-Saxons are not individually apt to act,
nor to respect the actor as such. So we miss one
side of the fnan, one of his perfectly natural means
of expressing himself.

Only this one side, however, need we miss, if that

^

28 ROSTAND

to some degree. For this dramatic expression so
natural to Cyrano, as I suppose to all French and
many more, is but one side of the character. It is
a mode of expression for certain things, but not
for everything. There are things about Cyrano
that do not come to such expression.

We Anglo-Saxons want ideas or we think we do.
All else we put aside as being superficial, insincere,
and so miss the greater part of the dramatic spirit
of the Latin. But Cyrano has his ideas, too, as
well as his poses. He is less conscious of them
perhaps, but he has them, or rather, as we should
say of his poses, he is them.

Cyrano is in fact a type — a type of the largest
class of people in the world (for it includes every
one), namely those who do not get what they know
they deserve, who find no chance to do what they
know they could do, who are so much greater to
themselves than to the cold world. He is also the
type of a much smaller class who do not make a
fuss about the matter, but carry it all off so gaily
and finely that no one has any consciousness of com-
plaint, murmuring, repining ; indeed perhaps there
is at bottom hardly a suspicion of anything of the
kind. From the girl who is not like other girls,
from that strange commercial traveller some years
ago who published poems that his friends might
know his real self, to the philosopher with his " To

ROSTAND 29

be great Is to be misunderstood," or to the professor
who fretted and fumed and lamented, and tor-
mented himself " because, as he acknowledged to
himself, the Thou sweet gentleman was not suffi-
ciently honoured," to the great Queen exclaiming:
" If my people only knew me as I am 1 " we all
nurse an ideal in our hearts and most of us know
that it will never be reahsed, even that it cannot be
realised. For one reason or another, doubtless,
not always a nose, — perhaps even it is the neces
sary nature of things, though that is rarely
view that we take of it.

And so Cyrano takes our sympathy. We are
even as he. With him it is a nose, with us fortu-
nately a something else, that prevents~»our Sitand-
ing forth_tojhe^wod[ifor^^a^^^^^ This,

besides many minor matters, good each in its own
way, is the thing that unconsciously touches all.

Yet, because M. Rostand is not Shakespeare or
some one like him, we do not have everything.
Some would say because he is a Frenchman,
decadent, pessimist, morbid, he has nothing more
to say than just that. Here is a man who was
fine, strong, brave, good, and never got his due.
What of it? Well, the rest is silence, or nearly
so. The last act is pathetic, touching, but not
illuminating. Certainly Roxane did not love him,
— or suppose she did, what of it.? He had no

so ROSTAND

comprehension of It. And suppose he had had,
what then? Would that have been what we feel
the true, the inevitable end? I fear not.

Still it is a beautiful play. To-night, seven
years after I read it first and saw it on the stage,
I read it once more, and that with some misgiving.
But the beautiful verse has lost none of its beauty ;
the gaiety and verve and spirit have lost none of
their lightness; the situations have lost no thrill;
and the play has much the same meaning as that
first night when I read it, and it pursued itself
through my mind till morning, — as much and
more.

When a man does something very fine indeed
he may well fear — or at least his friends may
fear for him — that he will not be able to do some-
thing else worthy of being compared with it.
Until we get used to it, genius so often seems acci-
dent. There must be some high wave that no
other wave will reach. When M. Rostand had
surprised the world with " Cyrano de Bergerac,''
it was not unnatural that the world should sup-
pose that the next play would not sustain the
effect.

Such doubts were set at rest on the appearance
of " L^AIglon,'* when the book was read, and
doubly so when the play was seen. Many thought
that M. Rostand had bettered his masterpiece.

ROSTAND 81

This tragedy, with Its poor, weak Kttle hero, with
all its frivolity, all its decadent circumstance,
made a stronger effect than its wonderful prede-
cessor— stronger, if less obvious.

As before, we have under very special condi-
tions a figure of general appeal. This young
man, yearning after that great inheritance which
he hears, which he feels is his, imagining it in all
sorts of glittering and deceptive circumstance,
treasuring scraps of others' reminiscences, gain-
ing hope from misinterpreted detail, indulging
his fancy with aimless triviality, daring in ill-
advised effort, — for he hardly knows just what,
— failing and surrendering himself to the inev-
itable currents of life and even death, — he Is not
for us particularly the young Napoleon, he is
merely what he essentially is, a poignant example
of the fate that stands ready for all humanity.

"L'Aiglon" was first produced in New York not
long after a revival of " Hamlet," so that it was
not unnatural to think of the Prince of Denmark
in his weeds of customary black while looking on
the French prince in his Austrian white. With-
out comparing M. Rostand with Shakespeare, we
may still compare the great figure of English
romanticism in its heydey with this later figure of
French romance. It is perhaps singular that in
an age pre-eminent for exuberant conception and

82 ROSTAND

fulfilled achievement the greatest creation of lit-
erature should have been the man who thought
too closely on the event, and kept on living to
say, This thing^s to do, until circumstances took
the matter out of his hands. Not less singular is
it — if either be singular at all — that at the end
of a century of unrivalled material achievement
should appear this presentation of the prince who
strove to realise his fancies and failed.

So M. Rostand is not merely a Romanticist in
the sense that he gives us rattling sword-and-
mantle plays, in which things happen, according
to the saying of the day. He is that sort of neo-
Romanticist whose figures are types — a romancer,
we may think, of the school of Hawthorne. And
his figures generally typify the same thing.
Rudel is the poet whose love for the ideal leads
him to his own death, happily unknowing of the
reality which is nearest him. Cyrano is the
average man, perhaps, though one of immense
talent, the man who sees what he really is, what he
really might be, perhaps, but reconciles himself
slowly to the impossibility of ever making the
ideal conquer the world. And the Due de Reich-
stadt surely is an idealist of the first water. No
confident holder of the faith in the presence of
undeniable fact was more determined than the
Duke as he listens to Mettemich and finally breaks

ROSTAND 83

the mirror. He, too, gives way to the fact of the
matter, but he Is broken and not bent.

What Is It that leads M. Rostand to this pres-
entation of Invariable failure? Is It because he is
morbid, cynical, pessimistic, etc., etc., etc.?
Hardly. It Is due to something far more general
than such possibilities, namely, the tragic quality
of great drama — I had almost said of great lit-
erature. In spite of all that has been said about
the agreement of literature and life, there Is this
singular and Important difference, that literature
is In Its greatest moments tragic, and that life Is
not. M. Rostand writes as he does because he Is
a dramatist, a poet, a man of letters, and not a
pastor, a philanthropist, or a philosopher. As
such he cannot present the world as being all de-
lightful and right In the end. No great poets
while they were great have done so; Job, Helen,
Hamlet, Don Qulxo^, Faust, Colonel Newcome, —
these all are tragic figures.

I cannot pretend to explain, from the stand-
point of aesthetics, why this should be so. The
frivolous (and I am often one of them) will say
that every story must have an end, and that death
Is the only end that will stay ended, among matters
of Importance. Minor matters certainly come to
an end, as clothes, for Instance, the best even of
dinners, light loves In the portal. But with the

S4 ROSTAND

really important things it is different. Marriage,
of course, often plays the role of conclusion, on
the stage or in the book, but it is one of the un-
realities of comedy that it does so. Look about
for an end, and you will find it hard to think of
any but death or disappointment, which, if it be
really an end, is much the same thing.

Without taking this view too seriously, we
shall perhaps admit that it is not for literature
to demonstrate that things are going all right.
That seems rather the office of philosophy (if it
wants to try it) or of religion. Literature is for
our emotions. Now happiness is emotionally de-
lightful, but by its very nature it is not perma-
nent. " Even in the very temple of Delight,
veiled Melancholy hath her sovran shrine," said
Keats, with that direct, far-seeing intensity of
his. While man is what he is, mere satisfaction
can never be final. And however this may be In
art in general, or even in literature or in poetry,
it is readily enough seen to be so in the drama.
Comedy certainly is delightful, but the great
things are tragic. And that is because a great
dramatic moment, one that will remain with us,
be permanent, must be complete in itself — that is
" say ^ final. Now Romeo and Juliet in the tomb
of the Capulets are final figures. So Hamlet as
he utters " The rest is silence." So Lear on the

ROSTAND 35

heath, beyond even the power of Nahum Tate.
Comic figures there are also, but one cannot bea?^
to think of FalstafF always laughing. Romantic
figures there are too, suave and beautiful. Ferdi-
nand and Miranda, as they play at chess, and
certainly we should like to believe them eternal,
but the appeal is very ad hominerriy and the wise
will take it for no more than it is.

So Cyrano throwing his bag of money on the
stage is a permanent figure. " Quel geste,'* he
says, feeling the thing to the bottom, but without
troubling to analyse it. So L'Aiglon breaking
the mirror is a permanent figure. So Rudel on
the deck of his galley.

These figures give us dramatic moments. But
they also mean something, and we Anglo-Saxons
are dead set on seeing what they mean. " The
most popular play of the final decade of the cen-
tury presents no problem whatsoever, and avoids
any criticism of life," says a critic of eminence,
as though it were a fault. Mme. Bernhardt and
M. Coquelin, however, see that these things
have their meaning for those who appreciate them
and never think of explaining. So M. Rostand.
He contents himself with dramatic figures. They
justify themselves. Explanation belongs to the
philosopher.

And we, too, may be satisfied with M. Rostand,.

^ OF THE

UNIVERSITY

OF

36 ROSTAND

in spit€ of the invariable shade. A greater man
would perhaps be more reassuring. Tennyson
has King Arthur fail because it is not in the plan
of things for any individual to bring in the mil-
lennium, and Browning believes that a man's reach
must exceed his grasp. We need not be concerned
at M. Rostand's being a pessimist, if such he be;
it is often a fine thing to recognise and admit
pessimism as an element in life. It is of course
a pity that his handling is not perfect; the last
acts of " Cyrano," of " L'Aiglon," are they not
weak.? But even here there is something in har-
mony with the idea.

HAUPTMANN

Ten years ago, say, the name of Gerhardt
Hauptmann was a magic name; it was almost a
charm in itself to cause the most glorious aesthetic
thrills. It represented the finest things in litera-
ture. It is now rarely heard. " So sinks the
daystar in the ocean bed, and yet anon flames in
the forehead of the morning sky." There is for-
tunately plenty of time.

Hauptmann, however, never achieved such im-
mediate, such inordinate, such universal success
as did M. Rostand. But though he became more
gradually, if less widely, known, he was, in a way,
more stimulating and inspiring thereby. M. Ros-
tand became famous at one stroke. With Haupt-
mann each new play was a successive emotion and
excitement. Every new play was a new revela-
tion of the soul of the artist; it raised, for one
and another while, those clouds which keep from
the average soul that intellectual horizon which it
longs for, that emotional sunlight which puts
everything into the vivid reality, and makes
even common things for the time being lovely.

87

38 HAUPTMANN

Hence the thrill with which one first read the
words —

" Open the window. Let in Light and God ! ''
To those who had followed Hauptmann play after
play, they had the added demonstration of actual
experience.

It was in 1889 that " Vor Sonnenaufgang ■'
was given by the Freie Biihne. The performance
was made a battlefield between the old school and
the new. The inordinate excitement of that war,
of the war of which that was a campaign, has now
died down. I remember it, and would wonder at
myself for having been so stirred by it, did I
not remember also how sincere the emotion was.
" Horrible things were witnessed " in that play ;
" A picture of hell itself would have paled by the
side of it; Zola and Tolstoi would have had to
confess * He can do better than we.' " Such were
the expressions of Spielhagen some time after-
ward, who held the battlefield to have been a
Waterloo for the new school.

When we look back it seems natural enough.
Hauptmann was of a very sensitive, artistic dis-
position. He had not found his real power in
his efforts at sculpture, nor in his studies in
zoology, nor in his essays at poetry. It was very
natural that, unless he had been strongly impelled
5n some very different direction, he should have

HAUPTMANN 39

followed the influences of the moment. And given
so much, it was not remarkable that he should
have gone ahead of the advance.

When one reads Hauptmann's early plays, " Vor
Sonnenaufgang,'* " Das Friedensfest," " Einsame
Menschen,*' one thinks, necessarily almost, of
Tolstoi, Zola, Ibsen. They give us pretty con-
sistent realism in form and matter. The last is
by far the best, but if Hauptmann had done no
better, he would hardly remain in the minds of
those who have no especial turn for German lit-
erature. Looking back to the play, I recall most
readily the figure of Anna Mahr. It is almost
worth while to re-read the play to vivify that
strong and delicate figure, typical of so much of
the Ufe of her time and of ours, at once suggestive
and tragic. And yet even as a figure — entirely
aside from the play — ^Anna Mahr is not the
dramatic figure that will flash to mind in Magdgu
And whether she be or not, the play itself is cer-
tainly not greater than " Mutter Erde." So far
at least Hauptmann had not shown himself
greater than Sudermann or Max Halbe. He
went on, however, and did more.

He remained a realist, even a naturalist. But
there is not much reminiscence of the great leaders
in the plays that immediately followed. Haupt-
mann now strikes out more for himself. In " Die

40 HAUPTMANN

Weber " he goes as far as one can readily imagine
the stage can go. The play is written of a weavers'
strike. It is not, however, a play that takes a
weavers' strike for a background, or a setting,
or a situation in which a hero, or heroine, other
characters shall be presented. The play takes
the strike itself for its subject. There is no hera
and no heroine; characters there are, but only
because there must be people on the stage to have
any play at all. The same people do not hold
our interest; quite a new set of people appear in
the third act, and we hardly hear of the old ones.
The strike, however, is before us throughout; the
strike is the only character of importance; men
and women appear and disappear only that the
strike may be presented to us. An extraordinary
conception, and one subversive of the common
ideas of the stage, but logical enough realism,
Hauptmann read about the strike in a pamphlet,
and proceeded to put it on the stage. The wonder
is that he could make it seem dramatic and power-
ful. This wonder, however, he was able to accom-
plish.

Still realistic, but this time with a truly artistic
contempt for logic, Hauptmann next produced a
play about a beaver-skin. You may see it on the
German stage to-day : " Devilish funny, but no
drama and no art," I am told by a wholly com-

HAUPTMANN 41

petent authority. I am sorry to say that of it I
can read only about one word in four, which gives
me but a fragmentary idea of what it presents. I
must pass it by; I have enjoyed Hauptmann
greatly without it.

This play, however, and another, " College
Crampton," I learn from the conscientious biog-
rapher of Hauptmann, were suggested in spirit
by Moliere. And without as a rule going into
the question of influences and sources and so on,
it is curious to note for the moment the different
forms in which this realist presents himself to us,
or, rather, presents his view of the world. Real-
ism, in Zola's phrase, consists of the facts of life
seen through a temperament. Hauptmann's tem-'
perament would seem to be that of the chame-
leon ; he is a modem Proteus, and sounds his horn^
from under many disguises. In his first play hej
is like Tolstoi, in his second Uke Zola, in his third
hke Ibsen. In his fourth we see through the eyes
of Dr. Zimmermann the pamphleteer. In the fifth
it is Moliere. Certainly (if Zola be right) it is
a curious thing that the man will not see through
his own temperament.

Still it is to be remarked that another man, and
he also the greatest artist in letters of his nation
of his day, did just the same thing. Robert
Louis Stevenson was a very different man from

42 HAUPTMANN

Hauptmann, and had a very different view of the
world. But he was like him in that, whatever
his temperament, his artistic and poetic nature
was always curiously trying and testing new and
particular methods and ways of doing what he
wished to do, — " Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde,"
" Prince Otto," " Treasure Island," " Will o' the
Mill," " The Black Arrow," he is as romantic as
Hauptmann is realistic. We might recognise all
those books as by the same man, but in them,
as in Hauptmann's first plays, we see the man
> using the different forms, the modes of expression
that we are familiar with elsewhere. It is not
/ that an original genius must of necessity invent
' an original form ; that 'is far from the truth.
But that an original genius should adopt such
varying specialities of form, each of which seems
characteristic of something in itself, that does
seem singular. It would seem to be one of the
curious things In the psychology of the artist
that the most exquisite natures often have this
mimetic character. Perhaps It Is because they
are the most sensitive ; Whistler was a man rather
like that.

In all these things, however, Hauptmann was

r 8L realist, by which I mean that he was absorbed

and interested in the facts of life, and thought

it well to present them in much the same way that

HAUPTMANN 43

he saw them. The romanticist does not do that:
he commonly presents his view of Hfe in forms
that he has not seen. M. Rostand has something to
say; he likes to present it in forms very different
from the forms he sees around him. A fanciful
anywhere " if the costumes are pretty," the mar-
vellous East of the Crusades, the bare but glowing
hills of Galilee, Old Paris, Schonbrunn and the
field of Wagram, — these places and the people
appertaining to them are interesting to him.
They recur to his mind, take form and combina-
tion there, gain a significance from his theory of
life, from their relation to it, and when they de-
velop into a finished play they are found to pre-
sent a fact or facts, a meaning, a lesson, even, for
such as wish to be taught, but all in the glowing,
glorious, poetic, imaginative, beautiful figures
that the poet loved.

It is not so with Hauptmann. His ideas are
different from those of M. Rostand for one thing.
M. Rostand stands aloof and generalises. But
Hauptmann is near enough to be intensely moved i
by great wrongs and great struggles for redress.)
He is so near the particular thing that he becomesA
absorbed in it. Why should a man who wants to I
present the cruelty and crime involved in the fail-
ure of a great strike, why should he write about
the Sacred Mount and the belly and the members?

44 HAUPTMANN

True, Shakespeare took that way to say what he
wished to say, but then Shakespeare can hardly
have felt about current life as Hauptmann did.
He was a larger man and had larger views, but
certainly he controlled very well any great sym-
pathy he might have had for some of his more
limited brothers and sisters.

Hauptmann went in for it seriously. He would
show the world as it was. And whether he took
the method of Ibsen or of MoKere, he was always
there himself with his sympathy, his ideas, and
his poetry.

For that he was a poet appeared in what came
next. I like " Hanneles Himmelf ahrt " best of
all Hauptmann's work, and I am quite sure that
it is the most characteristic thing he has done. I
mean to re-read it at this moment. Or, rather,
I would, except that here it is better to write from
one's recollection than with one's eye on the text.
The drama ought to make, to have made, an im-
pression on one; if it does not it fails, and by as
much as the impression is not lasting, by so much
has the drama failed of its possibilities.

From the midst, then, of a time years back, a
time full of other work and other interests, a time
separated from Now by all sorts of differences,
appears the figure of Hannele cowering in her
miserable little bed, and of the Angel of Death

HAUPTMANN 45

looming up affectionately before the high stove;
and again of the little girl all aglow with interest
and excitement, and the good and kind tailor,
who has brought her the white dress and crystal
slippers; and again of the appearance of the
stranger, the worker, the physician, him of the
robe without a stain who comes to guide her
whither she is to go.

Well, and what of it all? I can Imagine some
disagreeable person saying. Frankly, reader, I
do not quite know. Those figures were very
beautiful to me once — if I read the play again
they would be beautiful once more.

But beyond that they have their significance.
I cannot now remember just what they did signify
to me once, nor can I say that in Hauptmann's
mind they ever signified such and such thoughts.
That would give something of a false idea. Haupt-
mann, himself a thorough-paced realist so far,
now presents an object different from anything
that had come from his hand. It is now realistic
psychology, as we may say, that is the main thing.
Here is the country almshouse and the wretched
creatures in it; here is a poor, abused little girl
who is brought there to die. The play follows
her last hours and presents her feverish and fan-
tastic thought. All that follows — the figure of
her dead mother, the three angels, the sudden

46 HAUPTMANN

changes, the great angel with dark garments and
dark wings, the village tailor, the stranger — is but
the creation of the fading power of the childish
soul, mingled curiously with the realities of the
Deaconess, Pastor Gottwald, and the poor crea-
tures of the almshouse. That, as a subject for
a " dream poem," was Hauptmann's interest, I
suppose, and not such and such ideas signified
thereby.

Still the figure and the passing dream bring
ideas and moods, and bring, too, moments of
serenity to the soul, even when somewhat choked
with the materialities of ashes and sugar plums.

In this play Hauptmann is more himself than
ever before or since. Heretofore he had tried
different forms, henceforward he tries more ; there
seems no end to his power of varying the mask
of form. But everything else that he wrote could
be put alongside of something else. The early
plays have easy analogues ; even " Die Weber "
was preceded by Verhaeren's " The Dawn," which
is not unlike it. The later plays, too, are in gen-
eral not unlike others. " Die versunkene Glocke "
is one of a number of Marchendramen, " Florian
Geyer" is a historic play, in form at least much
what Wildendruch might have written ; in " Fuhr-
mann Henschel " he was said at once to have " re-
turned " to something that his admirers approved.

HAUPTMANN 47

But " Hanneles Himmelfahrt," the Traum-
dichtung, resembles nothing else that I can think
of. It has all the rest of Hauptmann, — the real-
ism, the psychology, that we have seen, — ^joined
«e romance and the poetry that were to have
play in years to come. In motive It is a
little like Maeterlinck's " Mort de Tintagiles,"
and creates something of the same effect. But
that is a very different kind of work, and entirely
lacks the vitality which is one of the virtues of
" Hannele."

Like most of the previous plays, " Hannele '*
created a considerable stir, this time on religious
grounds as well as those of art. Hauptmann
went on calmly, and instead of trying to do again
anything he had done well once, he wrote a his-
torical drama, " Florian Geyer," into which he
put his whole energy, only to meet with a failure.
It was followed by " Die versunkene Glocke," the .
play which made Hauptmann really famous, by
which he Is generally known.

And yet the play is. In a way, not representa-
tive. If you read only " A Tale of Two Cities "
you might perhaps wonder that Dickens is often
thought of as a humourist. If you read only
" Die versunkene Glocke " you will wonder, per-
haps, why Hauptmann should be thought of as
a realist. For it is a romantic, fairy play in

48 HAUPTMANN

poetry, very different certainly from the plays
which had gone before, and different too from
those that followed. It is without much doubt
the greatest piece of work of its author, but it is
work in a very different direction from that in
which we are accustomed to look for him. It
was first acted in 1896, and will doubtless be re-
membered by many either at the Irving Place
Theatre or as given by Mr. Sothern.

The play begins at once. Up the mountain,
into the old, undisturbed world of romance, comes
the artist, broken-hearted at the failure of his
work for men. He had tried, perhaps, to do too
much, and has met failure.

It is very beautiful, certainly, this world of
romance. It was beautiful on the stage, and it
is still beautiful in the play, for one of the charms
with which literature compensates for its lack of
vivid visual impressions is that it lasts. It is
like the walls of Camelot, which were not built at
all and are therefore built for ever. So we can
go at will to that upland mountain-meadow, with
its violets and primroses, and the bees that sip
gold from the crocuses, and the pines that rustle
round about. There the Nickelmann lives, or there
he appears in the spring from his home deep down
underneath the hills. He is hoary and covered
with moss and weeds. There, too, lives the wood-

HAUPTMANN 49

scrattle, a coarse and licentious creature who
strangely smokes a pipe. There, also, are dwarfs
and elves. There is Rautendelein, half human, it
would seem, and half a bit of nature. She plays
with the bee and teases the Nickelmann and dances
with the elves, if she chooses, and jeers at the
wood-scrattle and his goatish legs. She has a
grandmother, too, a wise woman, who leads rather a
surly existence among these simple folk and feeds
the little Trolls with milk. The German forest
is certainly a fine place, and I have always loved
it, from early readings in Grimm down; we have
no such creatures in our forests. And I have
forgotten the dwarfs who are there, too; and all
is up on the mountain-side, far above the abodes
of men. Nature has withdrawn to herself before
the march of civiHsation. What elements of
humanity there are are merely animal, unless we
except the natural knowledge of the Wittich.

So much the play certainly has developed and
carried out with description and picture ; so much
for every one, whether more or not. Nature and
art the play presents, and like any fine big piece
of work, it is full of all sorts of things that reward
a reader who may come again and again, as one
may climb a mountain again and again, and
always find something new on the way, although
there is always the same view from the top. When

60 HAUPTMANN

Keats wrote " Endymion " he very sensibly noticed
that it was one of the things that people liked,
to have enough in a poem to be able to pick and
choose, to find always some new charm or some-
thing perhaps that had once charmed and then
slipped from mind. In this forest region we can
walk often, always finding something to notice,
something quaint, beautiful, stimulating.

Into this world of nature wanders Heinrich, the
artist. He had almost finished a great and beau-
tiful work and has been bitterly disappointed by
failure at the final moment. He gains by chance
a glimpse of Nature in her secret beauty and
charm. Before he is brought back to the valley
by his friends who have come to look for him, he
sees Rautendelein.

And here, with the very beginning of the action
of the play, comes an element into the play that
is not so simply handled — namely, that which is
loosely called the symbolism of the play. It would
seem that in this play of the Artist and Nature
and the World of Men, there must be some hidden
meaning. It arouses our curiosity, — a little, I
am afraid, like a cryptograph, — we want to know
what it all means.
' /. The artist who has endured a bitter fail are has
/ a glimpse of the secrets of nature, and though
borne down to his home on lower levels, it is by

HAUPTMANN 61

one of the spirits of nature that he is cured. He
leaves his home, and with the fresh, natural being
he has learned to know he goes up the mountain,
back to nature once more. He finds his strength
increased tenfold. But the power of humanity
is too strong; his dead wife draws him down from
his retreat. And as for his beautiful spirit of
nature, half human as she seems, the power of
nature is too much for her; she is drawn down
among the founts at the foundations of the earth.
This is the essential story of the " Versunkene
Glocke " shorn of its colour, and beauty, and body.
What would Hauptmann signify by it?

If it were pretty obvious that he wished to sig-
nify something of importance, I should think that
one ought to know what it is. But as the signifi-
cance is clearly something not, on the face of it,
obvious — for the author's countrymen have pre-
sented quite a number of different explanations
of it — ^I am content to read the play as a play
rather than a conundrum.

So then it may be asked: Is the figure of Hein-
rich without significance? And, if so, why should
any dramatic poem have significance ? What does
Rudel stand for? Cyrano? L'Aiglon? If these
figures are significant, why not Heinrich? Surely
it is an eccentric outcome to one's speculation that
presents M. Rostand as the dramatist of ideas and

m HAUPTMANN

Hauptmann the dramatist of legendary romance
alone.

The play certainly offers us dramatic situations.
Let us take one at random. The Pastor has come
to persuade Helnrlch to leave the mountain where
he Is living joyfully and doing great work and to
return to his home. The artist Is flushed with
success; the visitor Is by no means disconcerted
At what he sees around him. " Now God be
thanked ! " says he. " You are the same old
friend.

Heinrich, I am the same — and yet another, too.
Open the window. Let In Light and God.

Pastor. A noble saying.

Heinrich, I know none better.

Pastor. I know of better — still that one Is
good.''

y Here, certainly. In these few words between the
'^^Artlst who has abandoned his place among men
and gone to the heart of nature, and the Priest
who has gone to put before him the claim of a
power higher than nature, here there certainly Is
significance, such as any one can see, such as Is
almost explicit In words and characters. But
further there cannot be any symbolic significance
found for It which equals the real and fundamental
significance of the words and situation. Take
the simplest kind of symbolic significance — let us

HAUPTMANN 63

say, there are Art and Religion. Surely any such
abstraction as that is absolutely empty of mean-
ing when we compare it with the creation of the
Artist and the Man of God. We have the meaning
when we merely create in our minds Heinrich, the
Bell-caster, who is at work among the mountains,
and the Pastor of his earlier days, who seeks to
bring him back to his home. I do not mean to go
into it as a question of Realist or Ideal Philosophy,
but merely to speak of it as a matter of the drama.
And here, we may say without the slightest doubt,
that whatever abstract idea may be implied in
words and situation, it can add little to the real
meaning of them. Compared with the intellectual
and emotional powers which could create the situ-
ation and words, any further thinking which
could be tacked to them by allegory, will seem
feeble in the extreme. " To one reader, ' Die
versunkene Glocke,' conveys a certain impression;
to another an entirely different significance may
be suggested. Both may be right." On the other
hand both may be, and probably are, wrong, if
^^ significance " means explanation of the meaning,
for the real appeal of the drama is not in any
significance or meaning, but in its figures and its
situations and what they are. Heinrich leaves his
wife and children and goes up the mountain with
Rautendelein. Why say that it typifies anything

54 HAUPTMANN

more than Rip Van Winkle, who did much the
same thing, except that his elfish beings were
stout little Dutchmen instead of charming young
women. The situation is certainly one which
makes a wide appeal to all sorts of lurking in-
stincts of the heart. Man is not yet so absolutely
civilised that such a rush to freedom does not at
times seem an escape from bothers and monotonies
which he would often be without. But is it any
^eal addition to the impression to say that Art
finds Domesticity irksome and seeks the freedom
of Nature? I fancy not. That is a very simple
piece of generalisation and from a very small num-
ber of examples, but however that may be, it is
not as a generalisation that the thing will interest
us. ! If we wanted a generalisation we should go to
the moralist, who would give us the facts with the
proper inductions and deductions. What we want
is something for the imagination, something that
we can sympathise with, something that will have
more effect upon the fierce fret and grind of darker
moments than any abstraction has yet been found
to have. And that we get from the figure itself,
not from any meaning which it symbolises.

No — I think we shall gain little by inquiring as
to the symbolism of " Die versunkene Glocke."
If it were real symbolism it would be another
thing. In real symbolism — as that of William

HAUPTMANN 55

Blake — the poet, or the painter, has some meaning
that he conveys by absolute symbols, which, unless
we know their meaning, will give us no more hint
of it, than a page of Plato would give a newborn
child. Thus, in Blake's illustrations to the book
of Job, we observe the moon to be sometimes in
one comer of the picture, sometimes in the other.
That conveys a difference of meaning. I forget
what it is — I thought it of interest at the time I
knew it — but the point is that unless you know
that difference of meaning, you will miss the idea
of the picture. That is real symbolism. If you do
not know the key to Blake, it is impossible (unless
you make one) to know what his pictures are
about.

With Hauptmann, as with most artists with
whom the question is raised, the matter is different.
With them we generally have, not almost arbi-
trary symbols, but typical figures. The difference
is very clear. The cross is a symbol ; the fish used
to be a symbol. But nobody could have guessed
what they were symbols of who did not know the
associations which gave them meaning. On the
other hand, the Good Samaritan is no symbol; as
soon as any one knows who and what he was his
significance is plain and needs no explanation. In
like manner Heinrich is doubtless a typical figure,
just as Faust is, or Manfred, or Brand. But

56 HAUPTMANN

whatever he is a type of, he himself Is, so that one
who knows him, and who feels his passion and his
action, has what the poet meant to present, and
more Important, has It In the form In which the
poet meant to present It. A man may prefer to
translate the poet's language Into his own, but
that will be because he does not understand poetry,
or does not like it. It may be a curious intellectual
exercise to speculate farther, but unless there Is
very good ground for supposing that the poet
himself went farther, we shall probably miss what
he meant to express In aiming at what he did not
think of.

Of the succeeding plays of Hauptmann, I do
not propose to speak. Those who thought of
*' Die versunkene Glocke '' as the beginning of a
new epoch, received a shock In " Fuhrmann Hen-
schel." " Die versunkene Glocke " was presented
toward the end of 1896; a year afterwards ap-
peared " Cyrano de Bergerac," and It appeared
that a great romantic awakening was beginning.
It seems almost cynical for Hauptmann at such
a period to be considering the situation of a Sile-
slan carter, who having promised his dead wife not
to marry, now wished to marry the maid of the
house. The play was psychological. Now psy-
chology has Its romance, but " Fuhrmann Hen-
schel " did not carry on the torch uplifted In " Die

HAUPTMANN 57

versunkene Glocke." Nor did " Schluck und
Jau." This was a thoroughly characteristic piece
of work ; at a time when the world thought it knew
what Hauptmann could do, he proceeded to do
something quite beyond anybody's reckoning.
Few, however, cared for the '* Shakespearean "
farce, nor am I among the number. " Michael
Kramer," " Der rote Hahn," and " Rose Bernd "
were not such surprises, but they were not much
more successful.

As has often been remarked, Hauptmann is an
individualist; he chooses any form that he sees
fit for self-expression, but he will not harden into ,
an everyday conventionality even of his own mak- )
ing. You may sometimes find two of his plays j
that seem very much alike, but rarely are there
three of a kind. But he gives you himself in each.

And his subject-matter, too, is likely to be indi-
vidualistic. John Vockerat and Anna Mahr find
themselves together in opposition to the world
about them; if they "live their own lives" (f. e.
do as they please) they will harm other people's.
Heinrich the Bell-founder pursues life in his own
way, in despite of the pressure upon him of the
ideas and ways of the world. They are not, as
a rule, powerful personalities, nor does Haupt-
mann generally represent them as victorious —
indeed the reverse is the case — ^but they are individ-S

^8 HAUPTMANN

ualists. The reverse is shown in " The Weavers '*
and, I suppose, in " Hannele." It is a very common
modern motive, appearing in all sorts of forms,
mingling often with such inconsistencies as social-
ism. Even where it is not pre-eminent in Haupt-
mann, you will commonly feel its influence. He
seems to hold himself aloof with the resolve to be
himself, letting the world take him or leave him as
it will. Of his fifteen plays hardly a half can be
said to have been successful, save with the most
devoted.

In such a case there is a curious, perhaps a
wholly unpoetic interest in " Der arme Heinrich.'*
The play is founded on the poem of Hartmann von
Aue ; the story tells how Heinrich, lord of Aue, a
brilliant and splendid knight, distinguished by the
king and famous for his exploits in the Crusades,
chief paladin of the Holy Roman Empire, at the
very height of his glory and the vigour of his life
and joy in the world, was suddenly struck with
leprosy. Instead of being the most wonderful of
those remarkable combinations of imagination and
action which the mediaeval chivalry holds out to us,
he became simply an outcast, an object of loath-
ing, one who had to live in some squalid place by
himself, and who had to strike continually on a
wooden clapper that people might know that he
was near and avoid him.

HAUPTMANN 69

That is a fine subject for the individualist; a
leper has to live his own life partly because no one
else wants to live any part of it for him, and partly
because no one else will let him share a life in com-
mon. In the beginning of the play Heinrich is
among those who are devoted to him, a liegeman
of the house of Aue, an old retainer, a farm ten-
ant and his wife. They are not only his followers,
but they love him, before they know his secrete
Then his clapper sends a shiver through them.

There is therefore an interest, perhaps unpoetic,
in the lord and leper. Why does Hauptmann,
whose heroes seemed ready to stand out for them-
selves against God and man, who lived their own
lives and died their own deaths, why does he now
present to us the figure of one who, in his pride,
is guilty of insolence to God and is struck down
by the powers he has scorned into a terrible irony
of the state to which he aspired And why, as a
sequel to Heinrich the Bell-founder, does he elect
to present a man, who, in seeking the highest, falls
to the lowest, and must be rescued from the most
awful depths by the unselfish devotion of a girl
who, so far from wishing to live for herself, de-
sires rather to die for him.?

I cannot say, nor do I believe it necessary at
once to determine. Read and study a man's life
and his writings, and the eccentricities and incon-

60 HAUPTMANN

sistencies are smoothed out and what was strange
appears sane. But does the work mean more to
us? It certainly does, if we misapprehended it
before and know it rightly now. It is well enough
for an experiment to think we can take a poet's
work in some sense and meaning other than that
he had for it, but in the main we lose thereby, for
we get ourself and not the poet. In the long run
we must always wish to interpret a poem by the
poet's whole life and work.

But that with " Der arme Heinrich *' is not, I
believe, possible. The genius of Hauptmann is
constantly baffling us. So I take the poem much
as it stands, an old German saga, with all the
charm of mediaevalism in its material and great
simplicity and reserve in its handhng, and a de-
voted almost mystical air that is much in the tone
of " Hannele." With the other great play,
" Die versunkene Glocke," this one stands in
strange contrast. They present to us two con-
ceptions which are consistent only as many of
the strange antinomies of life are consistent, in be-
ing both true at once, we cannot well say how. The
two strains of revolt and resignation; one in the
figure of the artist maintaining himself stiffly
through the darkness till daybreak, and the other
poor humanity (prince like beggar girl) which
bows the head and finds happiness in submission.

HAUPTMANN 61

These three plays, I find, are almost the only
ones of Hauptmann that I care much to look over,
that abide in my mind. Perhaps it is because
I am growing more romantic with the added
years (contrary to the usual notion that youth is
the time for romance) and do not care so much
for the sanded arena of the world as in the period
of youth. Perhaps, also, I should not have liked
" Der arme Heinrich " twenty years ago as well
as the story of Heinrich the Bell-founder. But
now, having paid my money (in various ways), I
rather like to take my choice.

SUDERMANN

There used to be, in Germany at least, quite
a general critical opinion which placed Sudermann
as a dramatist somewhere between Hauptmann
and Wildenbruch. Hauptmann was the delight
of the advanced guard and Wildenbruch was the
favourite of the conservatives ; Sudermann seemed
to be somewhere between the two. As far as one
could learn, however, he was not admired by ad-
vanced guard and conservative alike, but on the
other hand was condemned at least by the ultras
of each party. One side called him a compromiser
and conventionalist, and the other said that he
merely used old technique for exploiting sensa-
tional claptrap in the way of so-called ideas. The
more advanced said that his dialogue was written
for schoolgirls, the conservatives said that his
material was light-headed extravagance. He was,
I believe, in Germany the representative of " Real-
ismus," while Hauptmann's particular lay was
** Naturalismus," and Wildenbruch's I don't know
just what.

For myself I am inclined to like this middle po-
63

SUDErSiInN 63

sition and to think of his plays in the words ap-
plied to that unknown dramatist whose works were
caviare to the general (not that Sudermann's .
are), namely, that it is " an excellent play, well
digested in the scenes, set down with as much
modesty as cunning." His method is, compara-
tively speaking, as wholesome as sweet, and by^
very much more handsome than fine. In other
words, while Sudermann's plays have not the bril-
liancy and exhilaration of some of the dramatists
of our day, in form at least, and dialogue, they ,
are well put together and written. But with such
matters it would be impertinent for me to meddle,
for one would hardly expect one who did not fol-
low German literature pretty closely to have an
opinion on these things.

Nor are they much in my line, although there
is or may be a good deal of interest in them. If
one have read more or less of the literature of the
last twenty-five years in the various parts of the
world, and seen pictures, and heard music, and
gone to the theatre, there is fascination in these
considerations of schools and tendencies and influ-
ences, past, present, and future. There is some-
thing inspiring in the largeness of it. And cer-
tainly, too, there is a sort of lyric fervour in i
Hauptmann which one may feel the lack of in
Sudermann. And in Wildenbruch there is doubt-

64 SUDERMANN

less something, too (only I can never quite get at
it), which brings out by contrast the qualities of
Sudermann. And it must be inspiring to read
" Sturmgeselle Sokrates " and to speculate on the
future of the German drama.

But all that, in itself, seems to me to neglect
so much. Sudermann is to me so personal a writer If
that when I see a play of his or read one (which
is much more often), all talk of influence or esti-
mates falls into the background, while my sympa-
thies and emotions are more wrung, I believe, than
by any of the others, and always have been. Not
that it is everything to have one's sympathies and
emotions wrung, — it does not necessarily mean the
highest art, — but it surely is something, and a
something that does not leave one free to con-
-sider questions of criticism. Nor can it be to me
alone that the plays of Sudermann make a very
personal appeal. Bernard Shaw can undoubtedly
show us hollow places in our modern life so that we
recognise the truth with a quick thrill of pleasure.
But however things ought to be, there are some
things that thrill us now. And if Sudermann can-
f not, or does not, see just what life should be,* he
) certainly can give us sudden realisations of what
life actually is; can touch us to the quick by his
poignant moments of life as we realise it, mo-
ments in which we cease for the time from being so-

SUDERMANN 65

cial figures and relapse into individualism. M. Ros-
tand takes us as individuals and touches us by an
appreciation of select moods, of our higher and
better moods; he presents to us, in his curiously
pessimistic way, moments of personality, ideals of
possibility, of standing rigidly in one's own self
while the world melts and crumbles away below.
But if Sudermann cannot or does not have much
to say about the ideal, he certainly can give us
keen feelings of the way our personality comes
in contact with those personalities next to us, who
are with us day by day, enveloped, save for one
time and another, in the impenetrable reserve thaty
keeps us commonly each to ourself .

Sudermann's motives are always, in his most
characteristic plays at least, combinations of those
great conflicts, or at least antagonisms or discords
of life, that every one, here in America to some de-
gree, as well as in Germany, finds among the con-
ditions with which he must take account. Home
and the outside world, the old generation and the
new, conventionalism and individualism, personal-
ity and society, faith and new ideas, art and
everyday life — who is there to-day who has not
some personal experience of such things as these?
Strife or conflict may be too stern a name for
them in ordinary life; but surely they make dis-
harmonies, incongruities, and often worse. Do

i

66 SUDERMANN

they make up more of our life to-day than they
did of the life in other times? I cannot say, but
certainly they make much. And it is an evidence
fthsit Sudermann sees life truly, in its larger lines,
fthat, in his stronger plays, they are rarely miss-
ing.

Not that these motives are always dragged into
his dramas, but it would seem as if these ideas, be-
ing often in his mind, continually influenced his
choice of subject or the moulding of his material.
" Die Ehre,'' his first play, has much the same
subject as Wildenbruch's "Die Haubenlerche '' :
each concerns the relations of a rich family to a
poor family among its dependents ; each shows the
rich offering benefits for a return in flesh and
blood and honour. There are strong situations
in each play and both were successful on the stage.
But Wildenbruch's play is thin and conventional
compared to Sudermann's, on account of the con-
flicting motives in " Die Ehre " to which one easily
finds an answer in one's own life. Robert, who
has been ten years in India, accustomed to a
larger, more modern life, comes back to a re-
stricted, old-fashioned, very lower middle-class
family; Alma, who has stayed at home, has been
continually escaping from the annoyances of
parental control to the temptations of the free,
half-bohemian circle to which she finds her way*

SUDERMANN 67

It IS all the same sort of thing that we may easily
see around us ; it does not take particularly strik-
ing forms as we see it, but it would if a dramatist
should deal with it. Robert comes back from the
freedom of his independent life to the pettiness
of his old father and mother; so do hundreds of
boys and girls come back from college, say, to
the farm. Alma, who chafes under the restric-
tions of the elder generation, wishes to seek the
glittering show of pleasure in her own way; and
we have examples of that, too, from the farm to
the city, or from the house to the street. It is
no great exhibition of genius to have noted so
much, but it i«, I think, a piece of genius to con-
ceive an action that shall be a focus for half a
dozen such motives, to carry it on by characters
that shall continually represent them to us, and
to express them and comment on them by con-
tinual epigram or chance remark that strike us
surely and often remain in the mind.

Just what the action is seems to me of lesser
importance, if only it be interesting. " Die
Ehre " was a successful play, and the critics, as
a whole, paid very little attention to what I have
been speaking of. Thus Bulthaupt, who is rep-
resentative enough, criticises the play severely
because of Graf Trast's disquisitions on Honour.
Now that turns the play into what is hideously

68 SUDERMANN

<;alled A problem-play. And further, it makes the
play something that we, over here, cannot easily
get hold of, for our ideas on Honour are different
in many respects from those current in Germany,
and though we may understand their feeling well
enough, and Sudermann's criticisms of it, yet it
<;an hardly be a matter which we shall feel very
keenly. Most Americans, I fancy, would agree
with Graf Trast — ^he is meant to be a man who
had seen the world — in his view that Honour dif-
fers with different people, being one thing in one
nation or class and something else in another, and
that if conventional honour were dispensed with
in favour of duty, the world would be quite as
well off.

But is this sort of speculation the play? Is a
play the resolution (however good) of such a
probkm? Hardly; here is a play of men and
women and the tides of life. Surely such things
are more interesting than questions and problems,
certainly more widespread.

Whether they are or not, this may be said : the
same discords or disharmonies of life that one
observes in " Die Ehre " are to be seen in
" Sodom's Ende." It is true that this play
ostensibly differs from the former; that play
offers us, according to the critics, a criticism of
current conceptions of honour, and this, they tell

SUDERMANN 69

us, IS a criticism of some current conceptions of
artistic life.

But if one do not think of such things, one finds
that here too we have personaUties and the cur-
rents of life of our time. Here Is the cramped
home of the ruined proprietor turned milk-in-
spector, and the phosphorescent rottenness of his
son Willy, a notable figure in the great (Berlin)
world of art and ideas. Here are the simple con-
ceptions of the old people and the younger but
decadent world of the critics, and those who catch
up their words. Here is the dim but deeply
rooted conception of duty and the half-acknow-
ledged sophistries of those who think their own
thoughts and live their own lives. Perhaps the
play is not so broad as " Die Ehre," but it is
stronger in its action, for each play of course
has some action which finds its course in the inter-
action of the forces of the world which it por-
trays. Its chief figure is more striking than
Robert in " Die Ehre." Willy Janikow is not so
much a character as a personality. The artist of
promise, son of parents whose Ufe is now of the
hardest, the man who has come to success in a
world where he cannot keep his head, loved by
so many and such a hard master to himself, I
remember him well sitting in the fading daylight
in his father's house, which he is about to leave,

70 SUDERMANN

murmuring " Reinheit, Reinheit." I remember
him well as he gathers himself together in his
studio, but too late, with the cry of " Arbeit ! "
just as the curtain falls. Somewhat conventional
/that is, without a doubt ; Sudermann uses conven-
/ tional modes of expression in a way Hauptmann
would never do, and that seems to take away from
his power with many. But I do not think that
it stands in the way of effect; it does not seem to
stand in the way of sincerity.

But it is in " Heimat " that all these motives
have freest play. As it is given in English, the
play is always called " Magda," and that is some-
thing of a mistake. And the character of Magda
has attracted the greatest actresses of our day, —
Bernhardt, Duse, Mrs. Campbell, Mrs. Fiske, —
and that, though not a mistake, is something that
rather veils the true nature of the play. Each
of those powerful actresses was so intent on her
rendering of the principal woman in the play that
she gave no great pains to the presentation of the
play as a whole — perhaps, indeed, did not under-
stand it.

Curiously enough, a theatrical critic of great
ability showed not long ago how one may readily
see one thing so well that he sees others very ill
or not at all. " In the discussions the play first
called down upon us," he remarked on seeing Mrs.

SUDERMANN 71

Fiske as Magda, " it was assumed that it dealt I
with the question of parental authority. ... It
was also assumed that it dealt with the problem
of the new woman. ... I wish to suggest that
this view is very short-sighted. Beneath the
transitory details of the play it seems to me that
there is a motive which is eternal." Certainly
there is, and the only thing noteworthy in this
remark is that it is a suggestion resulting from
" a growing suspicion." While seeing Duse and
Bernhardt and Mrs. Fiske, the suspicion grew
upon his mind that this play was not the exploita-
tion of a current " problem," but that it had a
motive of eternal interest. At first he missed the
real things in the play. That may have been
because he was a theatrical critic, and naturally
most interested in the acting. But Magda is not
the only character in the play; she is the most
brilliant, but probably the pastor, Heffterdingt,
was the author's chief effort. And the play is
not specifically about the new woman and parental
authority. It presents to us, as " Die Ehre "
does, the contrast between the provincial life and|
the big world. It shows us, as " Sodom's Ende "
does, the conflict between the quiet virtues of home
and the brilliant temptations of art. It shows us,
as " Es lebe das Leben " does, the difference be-
tween fulfilling one's own personality and follow-

72 SUDERMANN

ing the normal and narrow Ideas of duty. Nor
is that all; it does show us paternal authority,
but that is only the German form taken by the
constant difference between the older generation
and the newer. It does show us the new woman,
but that is only a current form of the difference
between new ideas and conservatism or conven-
tionaUsm, as you may choose to call it. In one
situation as a focus are all these lines of life. Nor
is it in the situation only — the return of the
brilliant prodigal daughter — that these motives
are implicit. They are everywhere Indicated in
the lines of the characters.

" Modern ideas," says the old soldier, " oh,
pshaw! I know them. But come into the quiet
homes where are bred brave soldiers and virtuous
wives. There you'll hear no talk about heredity,
no arguments about individuality, no scandalous
gossip. There modern ideas have no foothold, for
it is there that the life and the strength of the
Fatherland abide. Look at this home! There is
no luxury, — hardly even what you call good taste,
— faded rugs, birchen chairs, old pictures; and
yet, when you see the beams of the western sun
pour through the white curtains, and lie with such
a loving touch on the old room, does not something
say to you, ' Here dwells true happiness ? ' "

And when Magda looks about her, " Every-

SUDERMANN Td

thing's just the same/' says she. " Not a speck of
dust has moved." And her mother answers, solic-
itously, " I hope that you won't find any specks
of dust."

And when Magda speaks to her sister, *^ Come
here — close — tell me the truth — ^has it never en-
tered your mind to cast this whole network of pre*
caution and respect away from you, and to go
with the man you love out and away — anywhere —
it doesn't matter much — and as you lie quietly on
his breast, to hurl back a scornful laugh at the
whole world which has sunk behind you ? "

" No, Magda," says Marie, " I never feel so."

One might copy out pages of quotations, so v
remarkable is the way in which the action of char-
acter upon character brings out motives that are/
vital. I will confess that I hardly know whether
all this is precisely what one would call dramatic.
But that is something that must be put aside for
the moment.

These things should touch people deeply. They j
are not merely interesting problems. Few of us |
ever consider the problem of the new woman or |
of parental authority with the idea of finding any j
answer to it. But here is a home with good things
and stupid things and silly things, doubtless, as
many other homes have, and to it comes this glori-
ous outcast who has not been feeding on swine's

74 SUDERMANN

husks, but has reached fame and acquired fortune
and wealth and an immense retinue. In just that
form we shall probably never know that motive,
but every man whose wife and daughters are con-
stantly in the world of society, and every woman
whose husband spends his evenings at the club, and
whose boy goes out on the streets, will be able to
feel it. And so it is with the rest. As problems,
we have no earthly concern with them. In the
special forms which they take in Sudermann's
/ plays we have not much to do with them, and often
yiothing at all, but essentially we know them and
can respond to them.

And that the drama can present them is evident
from these plays. That they are essentially dra-
; (^ matic material is another matter ; it would seem
as if the novel gave a wider opportunity. Suder-
mann is a novelist as well as a dramatist, and an
\ exceptionally powerful one. I am not familiar
with all his works, but in " Frau Sorge " — the
best known of his novels on this side the water —
it certainly appears that he does not use the ad-
vantage that he seems to have to present largely
and fully the dominating currents of human life.
Instead of so doing he seems to narrow his grasp
to one powerful motive. It may be that the novel-
ist, who must work so much by description where
the dramatist can work by presentation, the

SUDERMANN 76

temptation is to confine oneself. However that be
— and it is no present business of mine — the im-
pression of Sudermann's plays is certainly that of l
a world of active impulses and of human figures J
living and moving therein*

It has been said, however, and perhaps it seems
obvious, that Sudermann's dramatic theme is " in
all his pieces the one single conflict in which free )
personality stands with the exactions of society," •
and that " he never allows it to be doubtful that
he stands on the side of personality and that he is
a champion of its rights." If this were the case,
it would take away the chief element of his power.
It is true that not a few dramatists in Germany
as well as elsewhere, and other men of letters as
well as dramatists, have presented of late the
rights of personality as against the pretensions
of society or some kind of society. It has always
been a favourite motive, for artists are always
men of personality, and they are apt enough to
present its claims. But in the present generation
the idea has been more common than before. " To
live one's own life" has become one of the catch-
words of modem literature. Merely among
modern German dramatists we can see the motive
in Hauptmann and in Max Halbe, in each very
tellingly presented, and we can see it also in Suder-
mann. But I cannot think that it is his only dra-

76 SUDERMANN

matic theme, even his pre-eminent interest. It
occurs in his plays, but always In connection with
other motives. In " Die Ehre " there is no doubt
that Robert and Leonora resolve finally to rescue
themselves from a world in which they cannot
draw moral breath. Graf Trast, too, had long
ago emancipated himself from the follies under
which he had grown up, and in the play he appears
as the representative of freedom of thought
against the conventional correctness of social eti-
quette. And Sudermann here is on the side of
those who honour duty more than the arbitrary
dictum of society, as poets and sane-minded people
have been for a good while. But poor, silly little
Alma in the play is also a disciple of personality :
she also wants to live her own life as much as any
girl who went into a shop instead of a family be-
cause she wanted freedom. She wants to do as
she pleases and is bored to death with the restric-
tions which her grave brother's ideas of decency
would lay upon her. And with Alma the author
shows no more sympathy than one would naturally
have for a charming and wrong-headed young
woman.

Nor in his next play was he particularly the
champion of personality. The idea, the antith-
esis, is more important in " Sodom's Ende " than
it is in some other plays, but I should not call it

SUDERMANN 77

the main motive. Willy Janikow is a man of per-
sonality ; but what is the society with which he is
in conflict? He is not in conflict with the society
which purchases his picture and prevents his paint-
ing any other; if he were, Sudermann might be
" on his side and fighting for his rights." The
society that he is in conflict with is the society
represented by the household of his father and
mother, and for his conflict with this society
Sudermann does not ask the support of our sym-
pathy.

In " Heimat " there need be no question that the \
idea of personality is pre-eminent; the very fact |
that so many great actresses have liked the part |
of Magda shows that clearly enough. But though I
Magda is the protagonist of personality in its ^
strife against the demands of society, yet even here
we cannot say that Sudermann leaves no doubt asN
to his own opinion. So far as the drama is con-M
cemed he has no opinion : he lets each person speak <|
as he ought and do what he naturally would do. ||
But the play throws its weight as much on the side
of society in the person of Pastor HefFterdingt as
it does on the side of personality as represented by
Magda. And wherever Suderman be champion he
^allows nobility to the words of the pastor «

Magda. " And your calling — does not that
bring joy enough?

78 SUDERMANN

Pastor. Yes, thank God, it does. But if one
takes it sincerely, he cannot well live his own life
in it. . . At least I cannot. One cannot exult
in the vigour of his personality — that is what
you mean, is it not.? And then, I look into so many
hearts — and one sees there too many wounds that
one cannot heal, ever to be very blithe."

If Sudermann hold a brief for personality, he is
a very honourable opponent and allows the cham-
pions of duty and of the rights of society a very
fair chance. Even in despondency the Pastor is
fine, as when he says to the woman who rejected him
long before : " Yes, I have had to deaden much
within my soul. My peace is as the peace of a
corpse."

In fact, as one reads the play undominated by
the power of some great actress, one may readily
feel that Sudermann is the spokesman for a well-
ordered life in common rather than for anarchy.
In fact, that gave the play its name.

When we come to " Es lebe das Leben " there
we need not deny that the main theme is the right
of personality and there without doubt Suder-
mann gives us an idea of his position in the figure
of Beate. And here he gives us the idea that there
OTe natures that have some excuse for transcending
social law. Still this is but one play : it was from
a criticism of it that I drew the remark quoted

SUDERMANN 79

above, and I fancy that the influence of this par-
ticular piece was enough to colour a little the crit-
ic's recollection.

Sudermann does not carry a brief for individ-\
uality as his chief stock in trade. That is one of
the things that I like about him, Hauptmann
rather does so, but Sudermann's view of life is
much larger than one motive merely, and it is that
which gives the exhilaration to the reading of his
plays, for it is only the self-absorbed mind that
views the world as a struggle between personality
and society. One can certainly analyse the matter
so that it looks as if it were. For instance, one
antagonism that appears often in Sudermann's
plays, because it appears often in life, is the oppo-
sition between old and young, between one generar.
tion and the next. It is one of the commonest
causes of misunderstanding. And to the young
man or the young woman this matter looks as if it
were the great case of Personality vs. Society. But
it rarely is. The young man only thinks that he
wars with society because society is represented in
his mind by the precepts and powers of the elder
generation. If the children could get the upper
hand, as in " Lilliput Levee," our individualist
would find that everybody was on his side, and that
he could live his own life as much as he wished, if
it did not interfere with anybody else. The two

80 SUDERMANN

oppositions are based on quite different sets of
fact. The antagonism of personality to society
is one of the feelings absolutely necessary to th(
preservation of individual life, namely of life itself.
The very fact that a man must feed himself first
before he can be of use to society shows that there
must be something of this self-assertive element.
In some natures it will be more powerful, in some
less ; there will never be an agreement for it or
against it. But the opposition between the older
and the younger generation is a wholly different
feeling and arises, so far as the older generation
is concerned, from the conservatism that grows on
a man as he grows older, from the increase in wis-
dom and knowledge of results, and from a lack
of sympathy that comes partly from a poor mem-
ory and partly from absorption in work. Given
these characteristics of mankind as it grows older
and given also progress in the world, then you must
have opposition of some sort between those who
are just coming on the stage and those who are
already there. In just the same way we could see
that the motive of personality in strife with so-
ciety combines easily with other motives which
Sudermann observes in the world and presents in
his plays. But they are not all one motive; they
are many : probably more than I have noted.
What can we say is the effect of such motives,

SUDERMANN 81

how IS it with us when we have them impressed
strongly upon us? Is it not exactly the effect of
the tragic figure? The great tragic figure affects
us as the tragedy of Rome affected Lord Byron.
" What are our woes and suff ranee ? " By com-
parison with great misfortunes of general appeal
and nobly born, our own griefs and miseries and
complaints against fortune calm down for a time.
But here is something different. Sudermann has
no great tragic figures — at least not in these
plays. Willy Janikow, it is true, expires at the
last moment, but we feel that it is only the neces-
sary result of all that we have seen, nor Is he ever
presented in such a way as to rouse all our sym-
pathy. In " Heimat," Magda does not die at all :
she probably goes back to her brilliant life. It is
the old Colonel who dies, full of years, retired from
active work, as ready to go as any of us. Beate
is a tragic figure, but as such rather an excep-
tion.

Sudermann's power Is not the power of tragedy \
as is M. Rostand's. He makes a powerful im-
pression, but it is stimulating rather than calm-
ing, possibly intellectual rather than emotional, on^
the whole. Here is life, we say, complex, conflict- \
ing in its currents, unharmonious. It takes a man
to keep afloat and pointed in the right direction. X
And with that we straighten up a bit (morally) ^ j

82 SUDERMANN

and take a little more credit to ourselves for our
handling of such a matter. Then when a tight nip
comes we can regard the matter a little better from
the eye of reason. If it be one thing to perceive
(the truth of the artist and another to be moved by
his power as a dramatist, Sudermann gives us
chiefly opportunities for the former. The latter
is not wanting in our experience of his work, any
more than it is with a good many other lesser men
who write plays. But it is in the former direction
that he is pre-eminent.

PINERO

I SHALL, never, in all probability, be one to den^r
that Mr. Pinero is a consummate playwright. As
to whether he be a great dramatist, whether his
plays be literature, whether he can be said to offer
to the world a " criticism of life," whether he have
a message — these are points on which I can imag-
ine some discussion, can imagine even taking part
.in it, but I cannot readily think of a dispute as to
his craftsmanship in stage technique.

One reason for this, I am willing to admit, is
that I have but a very hazy idea as to what stage
technique is. Mr. Ho wells — who, to be sure, will
not be accepted as authority by all who are learned
on this point — Mr. Howells, or at least one of his
characters, says in " The Story of a Play " that
there is no such thing. They talk about a know-
ledge of the stage," says Maxwell, " as if it were
a difficult science, instead of a very simple piece of
mechanism whose limitations and possibilities any
one may seize at a glance. All that their know-
ledge of it comes to is claptrap, pure and simple.
They brag of its resources, and tell you the car-

84 PINERO

penter can do anything you want nowadays, but If
you attempt anything outside of their tradition,
they are frightened. They think that their exits
and entrances are great matters and that they
must come on with such a speech, and go off with
another; but It Is not of the least Importance how
they come or go. If they have something Interest-
ing to say or do." So the disappointed playwright
to his admiring wife. I have never been quite sure
whether that were Mr. Howells' own view or merely
the result of his observation of literary men who
write for the stage. I presume it may be the lat-
ter. I have a considerable interest in stage tech-
nique and would enjoy of all things having its fine
points exhibited to me by one who knew. But the
professors of that science whom I have known have
always seemed rather too general and glittering
for my academic mind to follow them. I notice of
stagecraft, however, that it Is esteemed of great
importance on one side of the footlights and of
none at all on the other. In this respect it some-
what resembles the technique of painting, as Mr.
Henry Arthur Jones pointed out a year or so ago
in the Nineteenth Century, although he grounds
his opinion on ve^-y different reasons.

I know of no good treatise on the subject, and
it is, in fact, rather hard to find out just what play-
wrights and actors consider the really important

PINERO 85

things in the plays they present. I have noticed
one or t\^o little things that may serve to give
something of a notion. In Miss Clara Morris's
very interesting " Life on the Stage " are one or
two bits of mention of the actor's art, of which
the following is the most suggestive:

" Mr. Daly wanted me to get across the stage,
so that I should be out of hearing distance of two
of the gentlemen . . . [There were many ex-
pedients for crossing, but none pleased Mr.
Daly, until Miss Morris suggested a smelling-
bottle] . . . He brightened quickly — clouded
over even more quickly : ' Y-e-e-s ! N-o-o ! at least
if it had never appeared before. But let me see —
Miss Morris, you must carry that smelling-bottle
in the preceding scene — and, yes, I'll just put in
a line in your part, making you ask some one to
hand it to you — that will nail attention to it, you
see! Then in this scene, when you leave these
people and cross the room to get your smelling-
bottle from the mantel, it will be a perfectly nat-
ural action on your part, and will give the men a
chance of explanation and warning.' "

Notice that new line in her part, — that shows
necessities and possibilities which Shakespeare did
not have to consider. Not so with the following,
which comes from an interview granted by Mr.
Stephen Phillips to a newspaper man:

^

86 PINERO

"When I read * Herod ' to [Mr. Beerbohm]
Tree, he was at the outset bored, sceptical, and
wanted nothing so much as to get through with it.
Gradually he grew more and more interested and
excited, until I came to the passage where trum-
pets are heard in the distance. ' Ha ! ' he said to
his secretary, * you see the reason of that ? ' Then
he turned to me, and said : * Have you ever been on
the stage ? ' He did not know I had ever been an
actor, but he divined it in that one touch." So far
Mr. Phillips in the interview: the interviewer,
R. D. B., continues, " I repeat that if it had not
been for his intimate knowledge of stagecraft, his
career as a playwright might have been cut short
right then and there, for Beerbohm Tree vows
that it was just this thing that made him accept
the young man as a coming great poet."

The last remark, if true, throws floods of light
upon our question, as well as upon Mr. Tree's
capabilities as a critic of poetry.

Of this sort of stagecraft, I fancy Mr. Pinero
must be a master, of the things belonging wholly
to the stage and necessary to make a play go ; the
thousand and one little things, which if tbey are
perfect., no on: notices. Of course the smelling-
bottle and the trumpets are merely accidents ; they
may even never have existed; but they serve to
illustrate a kind of thing that is obviously of im-

PINERO 87

portance in any art, even though it is rarely un-
derstood, quite naturally, by a majority of those
who enjoy that art. We need no more inquire into
it than into the details of an actor's make-up.

Of a more important kind of stagecraft, too, —
which can be dimly perceived even by one so stage-
blind as a literary critic, — Mr. Pinero is a master.
The management of incidents and events so as to
bring out strongly and rightly the situations and
the characters — of this art Pinero is master as well
as of the other. I have generally considered the
best example of his skill to be the moment in " The
Profligate " when Janet Preece sees Dunstan Ren-
shaw and Lord Dangers, but perhaps something
from " Letty " will be better remembered. In the
third act of that play Mr. Letchmere (excellent
name — a corruption probably of Lechmore) and
his sister are good representatives of a fine old
crusted family who are beginning to get afraid of
themselves as being a little too representative.
Each is engaged in an affair that shows signs of
going a bit too far. Mrs. Crosbie resolves to
break hers off; there is to be a good-bye dinner
with Coppy, the future co-respondent ; and she in-
vites to it her brother, who is devotedly fond of her,
begging him to stick to her that evening and see
that she does not get a chance to be run away with
by her emotions, and Coppy. So he does : he dines

88 PINERO

with them and they have a very pleasant little
dinner, and then just as they are about to leave
the restaurant, it appears that the room is to be
taken by Mr. Mandeville, who is celebrating his
engagement to Letty. Now Letty is the young
lady with whom Mr. Letehmere has been carrying
on : it was rather supposed that he was not going
to see her again, now that she was about to marry
nicely " in her own class." He does, however, see
her, is asked to stay a moment for a glass of wine,
does so, arranges to run away with her, but for the
moment neglects his sister, who grasps the oppor-
tunity of being herself. That seems to me excel-
lent. The forces that move these people are inex-
orable. Letehmere loves his sister and wants her
to be better than he, an absolutely necessary ele-
ment in family feeling. He will do anything for
her to make her so, — anything except not loving
some one else's sister. So that situation is excel-
lent. So is the next. Having persuaded Letty to
leave her awful fiance for him, and while very hap-
pily planning with her a delightful future, he sud-
denly learns that the expected has happened: his
sister has flown or rather flitted. He loves his
sister, certainly, but he feels strongly that she is
in a manner disgraced. In the momentary softness
of heart, Letty recovers herself and regains terra
firma. She subsequently marries " in her own

PINERO 89

class '' and is very happy. Letchmere, I am afraid,
goes to the dogs. It takes time to tell these com-
plicated things, but they are certainly fine pieces
of work.

Or take the second act of " Iris " — the end of
it — another masterpiece in its kind. Maldonado
has left Iris his cheque-book, which she scorns to
use, though she does not give it back. But an old
friend in trouble appeals to her ; Iris wants money
to help her out and signs a cheque. She is in fact
drawn into the power of Maldonado by her very
generosity; that almost certain quality in easy,
pleasure-loving characters, sometimes the only re-
deeming quality, delivers her over to her enemy.
Surely that is very good because, though a pre-
arranged matter of detail, it is founded on human
nature.

But to get away from these matters of stage-
craft or even dramatic art, matters that I must
ever handle gingerly, to another subject that now
and then comes up, namely Mr. Pinero as a man of
letters. Not long ago I saw an article on the edi-
torial page of an influential journal, which began
by saying that " another literary " artist had " un-
dertaken to reunite literature and the stage, whose
divorce has been so open and so dogmatically de-
creed by the melodramatists." This interested me :
I had heard talk of the divorce, although I had

90 PINERO

not known that it was the melodramatists who had
pronounced the decree, and I was glad to hear of
the reconciliation which the article went on to
speak of as almost if not possibly quite successful.
It seemed a good deal for one single work to ac-
complish and I became curious about it. The lit-
erary artist in question was Mrs. Craigie or John
Oliver Hobbes (I'm sure I don't know which to call
her — or him; it's very awkward about the pro-
nouns,) and the means of reconciliation was " The
Ambassador," which subsequently appeared in
print.

I thought it rather strange that John Oliver
Hobbes should be spoken of as a leader, as one of
the very few men of letters who had had to do with
the theatre. But I found that the article drew
the line pretty sharply, for it appeared later that
*' Dumas and Pinero are almost the only men who
take a high grade of literary art to the theatre."
I think this must surely have been before " Cyrano
de Bergerac," and certainly before its author had
been elected to the Academy. Still, even then it
seems to leave out a good many.

But, after all, what is a " literary play " ?
What is meant by " taking literary art to the
theatre "? I don't know anything else to say, just
now, except that a literary play is one that can be
printed in a book and read with satisfaction by a

PINERO 91

cultivated person ; namely, some one like oneself. I
do not see that much can be said beyond that. The
fact that a man is or is not professionally con-
nected with the theatre has nothing to do with it.
Moliere was an actor, Lessing a dramatic critic,
Sheridan a manager ; yet they contributed to liter-
ature much more, so far as the drama is concerned,
than Voltaire, Klopstock, and Addison, who were
distinctly men of letters.

It may seem foolish to say that a literary play is
one that is printed in a book. Still there can be
no doubt that there have been plays, even " liter-
ary plays," which never made a part of literature
simply because they were never printed. People
saw them, liked them perhaps, and forgot them:
and there was an end of it. But if you print your
play and can get the right people to read it, then
it becomes literature, in the sense, of course, that
a great deal else becomes literature. Now a good
many of Mr. Pinero's plays have been printed, so
here we have a topic that may readily be dis-
cussed.

Mr. Pinero has written a great many plays and
those of different kinds. " The Magistrate " is a
delightful farce ; " Sweet Lavender " is an attract-
ive idyll. But Mr. Pinero's claim to consideration
IS not founded on farces or idylls : he is thought of
especially as having written " 'The Second Mrs.

92 PINERO

Tanqueray " and a number of other so-called
" problem-plays.'' Mr. Brander Matthews' se-
vere reprehension of M. Rostand could never be
made of Mr. Pinero. Whatever be the case about
a criticism of life, he certainly is supposed to
present problems; whether he be really influenced
or not by Ibsen or Dumas, he has some character-
istics that remind us of them. What may be said
of him from this standpoint?

I do not care for the term " problem-play."
It may be a convenient expression for a play that
presents a problem, but certainly it is inelegant;
one would never speak of an adventure play, a his-
tory play, a manners play. But more funda-
mentally the term is at fault because problems as
such are not especially good subjects for plays.
'Plays deal with life, and life does not consist very
! largely of problems. The sociologist and the leg-
islator deal with problems, but the average man
or woman has not much to do with them save as
' an interesting intellectual exercise. We are all
concerned with living, doubtless, but living does
not involve many problems, save of a very practi-
cal nature, as how to manage a small income or
how to bring up one's children or how to carry on
one's business or how to settle one's religion or
politics. Otherwise the main thing is how to carry
out an ideal which forms itself within us, not by

PINERO 93

the resolution of problems generally, but in much
more subtle ways. And even if problems were a
current factor in life, a play would be a poor place
for the exploiting them* A novelist may perhaps
deal with problems, for he has space in which to
argue them pro and con, but arguments are not
very interesting to listen to.

Nor if problems were a fair test of the play-
wright, would Mr. Pinero fare very well. He does
not, so far as I know, present himself as a problem-
solver, but suppose for a moment that he did.
What are his problems ? " The Second Mrs. Tan-
queray " presents possibly the problem, " How can
a woman with a past become a woman without a
past ? " This problem clearly has the simple an-
swer that she cannot do it at all, to which it may
be added that no one else can either, by means
observable on the stage. " The Profligate " seems
to raise the novel problem, " Is it a good plan to
marry a rake to reform him.'^ '' " The Notorious
Mrs. Ebbsmith" has what is really more of a
■ question, " Can a man and woman live together as
intellectual companions ? " which, however, is a
^matter that sensible people (not reformers) will
; not spend much time upon. So I do not feel that
Mr. Pinero's problems would make him more
worthy of attention than various other dramatists.
Even if he had problems, however, they would

94 PINERO

not make plays. A good play generally gives us
some action that in its condensed dramatic form
will move us somehow, be an active factor in our
thinking and feeling; it gives us some character
often typical of an idea, or of something that we
are thinking about. By virtue of being a play it
may be able to burn these things in upon our mem-
ories. '' Macbeth " gives us the wages of sin in
the form of death to the finer life and finally of the
death of the body. " Hamlet " gives us the man
of thought in the world of action. Here Mr.
Pinero might have something to give us. If he
have anything to say, being a master of stage art,
he should be able to create some figure typical of
some great element in life, some action or situation
which gathers into a focus some great experience.
I fear he does not do so. His shady ladies soon
become very shadowy in the mind. The solutions
to his " problems " are like that of Alexander over
the Grordian knot. " When Mr. Pinero essayed to
write plays such as these, dealing with the deepest
problems of life," writes a recent critic, " he chal-
lenged comparison not merely with the world of
dramatists, but with the world of thinkers." It
is going rather far to call Mr. Pinero's problems
the deepest of life or to fancy that the world of
thinkers has ever been very much concerned with
them. Mr. Pinero does not make much of them,

PINERO 96

they do not remain with us ; they hold our attention
while they are acting, but we soon lose them from
mind. This is really not so much the fault of the
thinker as of the artist. Sudermann, to take an
example not so often trotted out as Ibsen or
Dumas, is not a thinker, and yet " Die Ehre,"
" Sodom's Ende," " Heimat,'' while they do not
offer us problems and their solutions, do offer us
presentation of some of the great contrasts and
contradictions of life.

Mr. Pinero's latest plays, " Iris " and " Letty,"
will not be called problem plays by any one. " The
Gay Lord Quex " depicts what the marquess him-
self calls " a curious phase of modern life." So in
an extended sense do " Iris " and " Letty.''

" The Gay Lord Quex " can hardly be one of
those plays which we enjoy from its truth to
nature, for few of us have had the privilege of
knowing a social world where a man can flirt with
a manicurist at noon and with a duchess at mid-
night. Those who can compare the play with life
itself will regard it as a picture of manners. But
more broadly the interest in the play lies in the
cleverness of the intrigue, and in a minor way in
the cnaracter of Lord Quex himself. From the
rather doubtful atmosphere of " establishments "
which serve a double purpose, and Italian gardens
and boudoirs which seem to be used for one only,

96 PINERO

he emerges with more credit than any one would
imagine on his first appearance. But the real
thing is the extreme cleverness of the turns in the
third act, wherein the manicurist and the reformed
rake pit themselves against each other. This is
dramatic construction; something which I admire
immensely when I see it and consider it imperti-
nent to praise.

" Iris " and " Letty " have as much construc-
tion and more real body to them. The phases of
life which they present are more general. If we
do not know them, we have known others pretty
nearly like them. And if not even that, we can see
some pretty general principles of life upon which
they are based. The first shows us a bit of the
world that is dependent on pleasure. Iris and her
friends enjoy life while they have money (whereby
they can make others minister to their pleas-
ures), but when they lose it, they are all at sea.
It is true that Maldonado is a millionaire banker,
Kane a working solicitor, and Trenwith goes to
work out his destiny in Canada. But there is not
much doubt that Maldonado did not work for his
money, while Kane, of course, stole his, and as for
Trenwith's making a competence in British Colum-
bia in two years, we on this side the water are sim-
ply incredulous. Poor old Croker had got to
middle age without being useful in the world, and

PINERO 97

so, when he lost the money he had inherited, he
couldn't think of anything but being a club sec-
retary, and as for Iris herself, of course that is
the whole play, the picture of the weak nature so
dependent upon its luxuries that it must follow
the easiest path to them.

As for " Letty," it seems to me as strong a
piece of work as anything Mr. Pinero has done.
It presents no problem but merely an element in
life, namely, a glimpse of a world that has run to
seed, particularly of an old family which has kept
its money but lost its power of behaving decently,
or rather, perhaps, has not moved on with the rest
of society. With this is contrasted the world in
which Letty lives, sordid, coarse, stupid, and yet
with the elements of happiness in it. In a way
the play challenges comparison with " Sodom's
Ende " and " Ghosts.'' It need hardly be said
that Mr. Pinero does not burn in his idea with the
atrocious firmness of Ibsen. And it should be said
that he is not so convinced of the real excellence of
good, honest, innocent life as is the German, and
consequently cannot make his picture of it con-
vincing to the audience. Still one follows Letty
intently: at first it all seems disagreeable, true,
incomprehensible, but it clears up as the play goes
on, until finally, in the last half of the fourth act,
the aim of the dramatist come* out clearly, and line

98 PINERO

after line is added with perfect definiteness and
surety of hand. And the Epilogue, though possi-
bly not absolutely sincere, is really the right
thing.

Mr. Pinero is not a thinker, a moralist, or a
philosopher. Nor does he appear to think that he
is. Mr. Henry Arthur Jones writes articles in the
magazines on the function of the drama, and the
renascence of it, and the aims and the art and the
other things of it, but Mr. Pinero seems content to
write plays. He does not pose as other than a
dramatist : his admirers may talk of his problems,
but his own work does not give the impression that
he takes himself or his work over seriously. His
plays are not sermons nor polemics, they have no
arguments and no prefaces. They are simply
plays, and for the moment, at the theatre, they
are remarkably good ones.

How good they are at the theatre every one
knows ; how good they are even to read is apparent
when we read the works of some other successful
playwrights, say of his predecessor Robertson.
Robertson's comedies are in a general way not so
very unlike Mr. Pinero's. They do not present
problems, but that is merely because problems were
not in fashion in the sixties. Robertson presents
questions, and between questions and problems, so
far as the dramatist is concerned, there is not

PINERO 99

much difference. Neither can be settled by a play ;
each gives a playwright a theme which may affect
his audience keenly. But Robertson's " School/'
for instance, — which happens to be the only one of
his that I have at hand, — Mr. Pinero is certainly
miles beyond that, partly because everybody is,
but also in part because he is really more of a man
of letters than Robertson. It is true that Mr,
Pinero is first and foremost a man of the theatre.
When " The Ambassador " appeared it was
curious to compare it with " The Princess and the
Butterfly," which came out about the same time.
The two plays were of much the same general
kind, comedies of character and incident, set in
the same world, mostly in the same place, more or
less alike in plot if not in motive. Mr. Pinero's
play is certainly the more theatrical if you come to
analyse it closely : everybody has something to do,
to be sure, but^ often somebody has no reason for
existing, save to do some special thing that the
play demands. The dialogue of both plays is
smart and showy, but Mr. Pinero's is often con-
ventional and artificial, while in " The Ambassa-
dor " there are often touches of nature that might
pass unperceived on the boards. There is not
much to choose as to the characters, but Mr.
Pinero's are somewhat more mechanical in that
they are all people who exhibit the motive of the

100 PINERO

play, show the effects of middle age, in different
ways. One is a woman who still loves her husband,
one a woman who chiefly loves her dinner, and so
on, and they are not much more. But if Mr.
Pinero is the more theatrical, it must be remem-
bered that he is writing for the theatre. The
theatre has its conventions, and it would be absurd
to imagine that even to-day we could transfer a
bit of real life from the parlour to the stage, and
have it seem across the footlights as it seemed
across the room.

In the Fifth Reader, or perhaps the Fourth,
ihere used to be a tale about two sculptors who
made two statues to go up and be set on a very
high place. The reader may remember it; one
statue seemed coarse and rude till it got where it
was intended to be; the other, which was very
-charming and delicate when examined down below,
lost a good deal when it was put in place. It is the
same thing here. Mr. Pinero knows the stage
better than Mrs. Craigie: he is somewhat conven-
tional and confined, but he must know the stage.
Ladies wear rouge on the stage and put lines under
their eyes, and do other things which would not
render them attractive in the parlour, and go do
the men. Some of these things about Mr. Pinero
that we do not care for are necessary for the right
effect across the footlights.

PINERO 101

Ancl as to the other things; — the delicacies, the
quiet touches, the deUghtful half-tones, — we must
be content to miss them at the theatre. Of course
we may mourn that these things cannot be on the
stage, that they can get no farther than to be
realised by the kindly imagination, that they seem
to lose character and colour when incorporate in
real flesh and blood. We may mourn at all this,
but it will be without reason. Our keenest pleas-
ures, our most delightful thrills or chuckles, do
we really wish to share them with the multitude ?

The stage is still a public place. It is not out-
doors and boisterous as it was with the Elizabeth-
ans, but still it is not exactly a place for intima-
cies. Let us be content to have our poetry as o
want it, to ourselves at home, and on the stage to
have what the stage can give us, effective figures
which will live in our minds, effective situations
which will sum up whole developments, effective
actions which will typify whole experiences. The^e
things can doubtless be gained otherwise; books
and pictures often give them to us. But nowhere
do we get them with the same force of impression
as on the stage, for the stage has a hundred means
of directing, concentrating, focussing what life
spreads out at large, upon one spot of our atten*
tion.

BERNARD SHAW

It is hard to take Mr. Bernard Shaw seriously,
for he has such a gift of wit and paradox that he
is apt to seem desirous of appearing frivolous. It
is hard also to write about him, for he has written
a good deal about himself much more cleverly than
most people have written about him. He has a
much better knowledge of the subject and a
superior gift of expression. Yet the attempt must
be made, for he really is serious in the main. He
wishes to accomplish something worth while and
he will do so, too, or do something in the direction.
If one cannot get into touch with him, then so
much the worse for oneself.

I was about to begin by saying that Mr. Shaw
was not so much a master of stagecraft as some
other people. Just then, however, I saw in a paper
that a distinguished Shawian actor affirmed him
to be greater in dramatic construction than
Shakespeare. That made me pause. It is true
that the remark was made at the University of
Chicago, an institution whence newspaper report
is apt to offer us matter much more highly col-

102

BERNARD SHAW 103

oured than the original: still such may have been
the opinion of the actor in question. I do not,
however, believe that it is Mr. Shaw's. Mr. Shaw
himself says somewhere, with his usual candour
and even modesty, that he is not remarkable for
stage technique. His plays, he seems to think,
are technically like other plays. He says that he
is better than Shakespeare in one respect, and here
not a few will probably agree with him, but does^
not claim superiority in the matter of stage con-
struction. There is not very much point in the
comparison. Shakespeare made his plays for his
own theatre, which was very different from ours,
and much of his absolute stage technique is to-day
impossible. Take the fifteen scenes (more or less)
in the third act of " Antony and Cleopatra," and
in the fourth; that is something out of the ques-
tion now, and so it is with some otliv^T matters. In
a large way I suppose Shakespeare had uior^ dra-
matic art than Mr. Shaw; certainly he managed
to write more plays that did and do well on the
stage.

But stagecraft is not Mr. Shaw's particularly
strong point, although, like most literary men who
write plays, he seems to be well settled in the
opinion that he knows quite enough about the
matter for practical purposes. It may be
doubted, however, whether his work is especially

104 BERNARD SHAW

well fitted for the stage. He can write, I sup-
pose, almost anything, and he has written a dozen
plays. Some of them have appeared on the stage,
and that with a greater or less success for the
time. But a determined criticism would probably
show that their success was due not so much to
their dramatic character as to something else.

Mr. Shaw's real matter of importance is not
his dramatic art, but his ideas or his way of think-
ing. He is a critic and a dramatist, it is true,
but at bottom he is a Radical, a Revolutionist, a
Socialist, I believe. His plays may be successful
as plays, and he is naturally pleased or displeased,
but the real root of the matter is in the ideas. In
fact, I suppose his ideas rather interfere with his
success as a playwright, because they prevent his
taking the stage seriously. He says that he did
not at first, a^.J results would seem to show that
he did not afterwards. He generally cast his
plays " in the ordinary practical comedy form in
use in all the theatres," but we may infer that
he could with equal ease have cast them in any
other form; indeed, his later plays have been of
various kinds.

It seems not unnatural that when a man has
mainly at heart the exploitation of some idea or
conception, and considers the dramatic part of
the business of minor importance, he will not be

BERNARD SHAW 105

a pre-eminent success on the stage. The actor
considers the acting and the stage management of
immense importance, and the ideas of very little
or none at all, and even he does not always suc-
ceed.

It would certainly not be worth while to at-
tempt to present a boiling down of Mr. Shaw's
ideas. For one thing his object in writing is gen-
erally to express them, which he does commonly
much better than I should be able to. But, for
another thing, he has so many ideas. He is, and
for a long time has been, a champion of a dif-
ferent order of society, and as such has not only
had many good ideas of his own, but he has ex-
pressed them excellently and very amusingly. Add
to that all the ideas that he has imputed to Wag-
ner, Ibsen, Nietzsche, and you have far too many
for a short essay. Bxt still it will be worth
making a try at the general nature and character
of his ideas as presented in his plays, or at least
of his dramatic character.

Mr. Shaw has published eleven plays. Of these
" Widowers' Houses " deals with the position of a
man who lives on money used by somebody else in
ways he cannot approve. This is a pretty im-
portant matter in modern life:^ brings in what
may really be a problem to inany. So many
people nowadays — I suppose it i^as so always —

106 BERNARD SHAW

live on the work of others, that it is rather im-
portant to know how the money is employed which
gets your bread and butter. " Mrs. Warren's
Profession " presents a girl whos^ mother has
educated her with money made in a pecuHarly dis-
honourable manner. This is not so common a
case; the particular manner brings up various
phases of the question which are so special that
the general nature of the problem is largely lost.
" The Philanderers," which is called an " unpleas-
ant play," has no definite problem, but is more a
satire on what used to be called the " new woman."
These ideas we need not discuss: they are but
special forms taken by the general motive power
of Mr. Shaw's thinking.

It is with Mr. Shaw as with most men : you will
best get at them when they are not dead set on
some special object. ''' Arms and the Man " has
no special target, and for that reason, perhaps,
it was more successful on the stage than Mr.
Shaw's earlier pieces. Taking as a setting the
vague possibilities for romance offered by Servia
and Bulgaria, Mr. Shaw calmly produces a
strictly realistic play. He presents the world as .
it is — not especially in Servia or Bulgaria, for^J[ /
suppose he has no especial knowledge of th(5^« »
countries — ^but the world in general, and.-^eai^s
a very amusing satire. It is a satire, and^it is

BERNARD SHAW 107

amusing, but it has enough hits at truth to be a
little more than that. Mr. Shaw gets everybody
off their high horses — the soldier, the gentleman,
the romantic young lady — we see and acknow-
ledge the various pretences and affectations of life
as we have often done before. Mr. Shaw wishes to
get at the real facts, the real springs of action,
but he does not get much farther than others have
done. That, I suppose, was the reason that
*' Arms and the Man " was not more successful
on the stage than it was. Its object was satir?
but not very vigorous satire, nor on very new
lines. It was more quaint, I should say^ than
anything else. Still, beside its particular satire,
it has plenty of touches which show the more gen-
eral purpose of the man. In the first act, where
the Servian soldier has sought refuge in the room
of the Bulgarian young lady, we see constantly
that we are to have the real thing, tinctured with
epigram, it is true, but still nearer the real thing
than melodrama.

" Some soldiers,'* says Raina scornfully, " are
afraid of death."

" All of them, dear lady," answers the man,
** all of them, believe me. It is our duty to live
as long as we can, and kill as many of the enemy
as we can."

There is satire and epigram there, but there Is

/T ^ Or THE ^

I UNIVERSITY I

108 BERNARD SHAW

also a certain sort of reality and great reason-
ableness. There is plenty of it. " Bless you,
dear lady," says the man, " you can always tell
an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and
cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols,
the old ones grub." It may or may not be so, but
at any rate it is a resolute doing away of conven-
tional romance, of the romance of pictures and
books and so on, for the reasonable view which is
willing to make an effort after the facts. It need
not be that Mr. Shaw knows as much of what real
soldiers actually are as Mr. Kipling. That par-
ticularity is rather beside his purpose : his especial
aim is to open our eyes now and then to the im-
possibihty of carrying through half the notions
that have grown up in the minds of every one from
books and pictures and superficial talk, mingled
with our own childish imagination and self-centred
desire. That sort of thing will not stand the test
of experience; people are always coming to grief
by depending upon it; better open one's eyes and
interpret what one really sees by a little common
sense.

When you have your mind set on this sort of
thing it must be hard to think of doing anything
else. I think it is remarkable that Mr. Shaw
should have any dramatic construction at all. I
remember nothing of it in " Arms and the Man,'*

BERNARD SHAW 109

which IS, all the same, one of the cleverest and most
amusing plays that one reads. I am sorry to say
that I never saw it, but I suspect that it does not
make quite so much difference as with some other
plays.

"You Never Can Tell" is another delightful
play. It is on the face of it more frivolous and,
indeed, more impossible, if one may say so, than
"Arms and the Man," but it is full of the same
sort of eye-openers as the other, and in the pas-
sages between Valentine and Gloria it begins to
get quite close to some of Mr. Shaw's later
heresies. That delightful waiter, too, — I'm sure
he would have made an Admirable Crichton if he
had had half a chance. Let us get on, however,
to " Candida," for that is, I take it, the best of
Mr. Shaw's plays, and certainly it is the one that
most people will happen to have in mind now,
unless perhaps " Man and Superman " be eviscer-
ated and exposed on the stage some time in the
winter.

" Candida " carries the process of eye-opening,
so dear to Mr. Shaw, one step farther than " Arms
and the Man." First we have the Rev. James
Morell, a Christian Socialist, and therefore at war
with the many evils and falsenesses of our social
life, and intent in bringing in a good, strong, and
honest way of life among people who are too mucK

110 BERNARD SHAW

bent on making money and enjoying themselves
to consider carefully the ways In which they do so.
Certainly the character Is Inimitably good, and
when we think chiefly of that kind of pleasure that
comes from seeing people and things presented In
a perfectly natural way and with a perfectly sure
touch, aside from what they happen to be, when
we answer with a thrill to every certainty of por-
trayal, and chuckle to ourselves at every small
point of human frailty painted for us just as It
is, why, the Reverend James appeals to us as few
figures upon the modern stage. We have him at
,;his best In the contrast with Mr. Burgess, the
** man of sixty, made coarse by the compulsory
selfishness of petty commerce " — there we have
him at his best, and he makes the right Impression,
a go-ahead, clear-vlsloned, plain-speaking man,
understanding the world and taking It for what It
is. *' Well," he says to his old scalawag of a
father-in-law, " that did not prevent our getting
on very well together. God made you what I call
a scoundrel as he made me what you call a fool.
... It was not for me to quarrel with Jils handi-
work in the one case more than in the other. So
long as you come here honestly as a self-respect-
ing, thorough, convinced scoundrel, justifying
your scoundrelism, and proud of it, you are wel-
come. But I won't have you here snivelling about

BERNARD SHAW 111

being a model employer and a converted man when
you're only an apostate with your coat turned for
the sake of a County Council contract. No ; I like
a man to be true to himself, even in wickedness.
Come, now; either take your hat and go, or else
sit down and give me a good scoundrelly reason
for wanting to be friends with me." We certainly
have here one who sees through the shams of mod-
ern life, and by the very clearness of his vision,
somehow, has power to make all others feel all their
sham pretentiousness. And as he transfixes the
ridiculous commercialist who is trying to make
friends with the Mammon of righteousness, we feel
that he and we are of those in the front rank of
progress, the men who know what is right and so
can do it.

And then appears Candida and her poet. He
is, to start with, singularly and strangely frank,
and strange and singular in other ways. As he
and Candida drove from the station he was tor-
mented all the time with wondering what he ought
to give the cabman. He is not made to get along
well in an everyday world — that is, not as the
world considers getting on well.

But it soon appears that the poet is there to
show us a range of view above the Reverend James.
A poet is a man more sensitive than the rest of
the world, and who therefore sees more than most

112 BERNARD SHAW

men, and who has more power of expression and
therefore says what he sees more exactly. James
could of course say good things. " The over-
paying instinct is a generous one ; better than the
underpaying, and not so common." " No, no,"
says Eugene, " Cowardice, incompetence," which
it often is, at least in the case of feeing, which
was the thing they were talking about. The poet
opens up on Morell at once, and comes out of each
encounter on top.

" Eugene, my boy," says the cheerful optimist,
who has just learned from Eugene that he loves
his wife, " you are making a fool of yourself — a
very great fool of yourself. There's a piece of
wholesome, plain speaking for you."

To which Eugene answers, " Oh, do you think
I don't know all that? Do you think that the
things that people make fools of themselves for
are any less real and true than the things they
behave sensibly about .^ They are more true, they
are the only things that are true."

We cannot, perhaps, immediately understand
such a point of view. I will confess that when
" Morell grasps him powerfully by the lapel of
his coat, he cowers down on the sofa and screams
powerfully," I rather sympathised with the bigger
man. And when Morell called him a little snivel-
ling, cowardly whelp, and told him to go before he

BERNARD SHAW 113

frightened himself Into a fit, I had enough red
blood in me to agree with him. But really, of
course, it is not anything especially to admire in
a man that he is physically so much more power-
ful than another that he could knock him into a
cocked-up hat. We feel that among our own kind
of people (whatever kind it may be) it is nice to
be big and hearty and strong, and to feel that we
could knock the stuffing out of this or that little
fool of our acquaintance. But we never make the
comparison broader and think that a good, power-
ful steam-fitter, or a solid coal-handler, is any
better than we because he could do us up. So
clearly the Reverend James is not a finer fellow,
with all the breadth of chest ; indeed, he would be
the first to discredit the reign of brute force, in
spite of the charms of muscular Christianity.

In fact Marchbanks gives us a second eye-open-
ing, and we perceive that the first was, in a meas-
ure, deceptive. Mr. Shaw was playing with us.
The first was too easy. It is not so much to see
through the deceits and shams of society nowadays.
Thackeray and Carlyle are not read by every-
body, but their chief standpoints are pretty com-
mon property. Indeed it is so much the fashion
to look beneath the surface that it is not at all
hard to take the pose. But really to know what
is what, really to react to the facts of life, to be

114 BERNARD SHAW

really genuine, that is no easier than It was In
the days of Teufelsdroeckh, or of Gulliver, or of
Piers the Ploughman.

Not that the Reverend James Is absolutely a
pretentious gasbag any more than Marchbanks Is
an Inspired prophet. He has a definite, a positive
part In the world's work. You cannot reform the
world with a few epigrams; most reformers are
impracticable persons, which means that they can-
not determine details, do not like to take the
trouble to make their ideas fit complicated cases,
are puzzled at any specific correct thinking, have
not patience and skill absolutely to know anything,
except a few general principles, " great laws of
life," as their admirers subsequently call them.
They are not the people to do the work of reform-
ing the world; the world has to reform itself.
But It can only be got to reform Itself by mid-
dlemen, so that the reformers have to have fol-
lowers, commonly men who do not entirely under-
stand them, but who get full of better ideas than
they had before, at least, and who Incite the world
to work Itself over into something a little better
than It was before. The new Ideas are handed
around In predigested tablets, and get to be rather
the thing. Then the original thinkers retire or
are retired to the background, and the reign of
talkers begins. The Rev. James Morell Is a

BERNARD SHAW 11&

typical talker. The original thinker is a dreamer
and doesn't like to do anything. The talkers are
commonly men of vitality who have neither the
imagination to dream nor the patience to think for
themselves. They want to do something in this
world, but, having no notion of just what they
can do, they take it out in talking. They believe
absolutely in what they say, while they say it, and
they rouse people to a state of excited conviction
by the hypnotic power of their language, as Mr.
Morell did at the meeting of the Guild of St.
Matthew. It is these latter people, those that
listen to the talkers, who go ahead and do the
world's work in reforming itself; but as they are
creatures of the emotions rather than of the in-
tellect, they never follow people like Marchbanks
because they do not understand them nor like
them, but do follow people like Mr. Morell because
they do like them and do not have to understand
them.

Of course Mr. Shaw is one of the Marchbankses,
but he is not entirely without sympathy for the
Morells. Who can be entirely without sympathy
for them? — ^big, strong, hearty fellows. How
much better it is that they should earn a living
by talking than that they should have to hoe com
all day on a farm or dig dirt on a railway. They
do more good, too.

116 BERNARD SHAW

In " Candida " Mr. Shaw sometimes loses the
reformer In the dramatist. Yet he does not do so
wholly ; he certainly shows a sympathy toward the
end for the Reverend James which is not entirely
consistent. Recollect that scathing description of
his family home. " You should come with us,
Eugene, and see the pictures of the hero of that
household. James as a baby ! the most wonderful
of all babies. James holding his first school prize,
won at the ripe age of eight! James as the cap-
tain of his eleven ! James in his first frock coat !
James under all sorts of glorious circumstances ! "
That is about as bitter in its satire as we can wish :
Mr. Shaw puts it in the mouth of the man's wife.
That was the right thing to do, and yet he also
allows us to feel a little sympathy for him.

" Candida " is undoubtedly an excellent piece
of writing, full of those flashes of reality that are
the great thing with Mr. Bernard Shaw. People
sometimes discuss It as a play with all seriousness ;
ask about its problem, about the character of Can-
dida, about the poet's secret, and such things.
They are all beside the point. One may talk of
them if one will, just as one may (Indeed must)
admire Miss Proserpine Garland. But the real
thing in the play is that it gives a standpoint
from which to view the world.

Appreciating this, we may proceed to Mr.

BERNARD SHAW 117

Shaw's latest utterance, " Man and Superman,''
which I saw in the paper the other day is to be
produced in New York shortly with notable omis-
sions. This, perhaps, makes it unnecessary to
write about it at present. The play has been
written, and Mr. Shaw has also written a criticism
upon it, so that no one else need try his hand upon
it. There still remained the possibiUty of saying
and showing either that it would do on the stage
or that it would not. I was going to say the
latter. But there is no use saying it now if the
play is to be acted before this gets into print.

" Man and Superman " is far more a play of
idea than most of Mr. Shaw's. " Arms and the
Man " gave us an idea of the standpoint of Mr.
Bernard Shaw ; he was a realistic satirist. " Can-
dida " went a step farther ; it made it clear that
here was a realist and a satirist who was not a
mere promulgator of everyday realism (like Bal- . .
zac, say) nor of everyday satire (say Thackeray). \ \
Mr. Shaw, it appeared, was an entirely modern \
person, an out-and-out advocate of neo-realism. i
Neo-realism is merely the presentation of the ulti-
mate facts of Uf e in any way you like. In " Man
and Superman " Mr. Shaw, having pierced to the
secret of the ultimate development of Man from
protoplaspi to the Superman, presents it to us in
a piece of extravagance, ostensibly in the garb of

118 BERNARD SHAW

to-day, with automobiles and so on, but really of
an entirely fanciful nature. This mode of pres-
entation is worth remarking: it is almost a note
of Mr. Shaw's dramaturgy. The expedient is
that of a frankly impossible motive carried out in
a very realistic manner. " The Philanderers "*
and " You Never Can Tell " were entirely absurd
and impossible in conception, but entirely realistic
in execution. The other plays do not have quite
so much of it, but there is usually some : in " Can-
dida " the calm discussion of which man the lady
is to go with seems almost as though Mr. Shaw
thought it a natural proceeding, but of course it
is not more so than having Cleopatra carried inta
Caesar's presence in a roll of carpet (I hope that
IS not historical) or having General Burgoyne
march from Boston to Albany to meet General
Howe. "Man and Superman" is quite as fan-
tastic as any romantic play: the main difference
is that it is not so interesting ; the dashing across
Europe in an automobile pursued by the girl one
is destined to marry, and landing among a set of
Spanish brigands, the chief of whom has been a
waiter at the Savoy, serves as a vehicle for Mr.
Shaw's views as well as anything else, but in itself
it has no imaginative character, and, indeed, is
rather a dull sort of humour.

But the form is not a matter of great impor-

BERNARD SHAW 119

tance, though I wish it were really amusing as
Mr. Shaw could have made it. The constant play
of idea is the main thing or else the great idea
at bottom. It is hardly necessary to say that the
true nature of the great truth promulgated in the
play is not easily grasped even in reading, would
be less easily understood if the whole play were
given on the stage, and will not be even guessed
at if the third act is much cut. It is to the effect
that the process of development of man into a
higher form (the Superman) is to be carried on
by sexual selection just as his development from
lower forms has been, and that in this process
women (do or should) wish to get married in order
that they may have children, and not for anyi
minor motive that fancy or romance or conven-|
tionality or policy may try to push into promi-
nence, and that men, having been of use in this
process, have about as much place in the economy
of nature as a sucked orange at breakfast. That
seems a curious idea for a play. Mr. Shaw pre-
sents it to us by the spectacle of two young ladies,
one of whom marries secretly and persuades the
father of her husband not to disinherit him, and
the other marries openly, having persuaded her
own father before dying to place her in charge of
the person she had singled out for that purpose.
A slight action is given to the piece by the dash of

120 BERNARD SHAW

the not-yet husband across Europe in an auto-
mobile in flight from the girl who intends to marry
him. All the other characters come after him in
another automobile, and all fall among comic
brigands.

All this circumstance appears to me to be
pretty poor stuff, and I shall take leave of it
merely by saying that, were it a hundred times
poorer, the play would still be worth reading for
the constant cleverness of the dialogue and the
occasional seriousness of the matter conveyed.
The theory of the play I suppose to be entirely
false, but I have no concern with it, one way or
the other. It gives Mr. Shaw a chance for his
epigram, and his epigram gives us a chance at
getting at a bit of truth now and then, or of
thinking that we do, both of which are exhilarat-
ing sensations. We need not swallow them all any
more than we swallow the ocean when we go in
swimming, — in fact, we could not do so if we tried,
— but in the constant effort to keep intellectually
afloat and to swim about, we find ourselves ma-
terially invigorated and refreshed.

This realistic brilliancy is the great thing about
Mr. Shaw. For the moment, I think, everything
else becomes dull and tawny beside this white light.
Pinero seems to be the merest boy, ^smoking cig-
arettes and talking of things thai he knows as

BERNARD SHAW 121

much about as the rabbit does of the purposes of
nature. Sudermann is evidently one who makes
not even an effort to see beneath the crust of cus-
tom and convention of a thousand years. Haupt-
mann, with all his brilliancy, is merely the bright
child who amuses you by telling how he gets the
better (or else doesn't) of oppressive elders, a
jam-pot rebel against meat and potatoes. Ros-
tand is the painter of very exquisite and charming
pictures to illustrate Jack-and-the-Beanstalk and
other such classics. This man, on the other hand,
has had life undet" his microscope and knows its
secrets, has put himself in touch with real scien-
tists who know the constitution of the universe,
and who now presents to us, with the sugar coat-
ing that we demand, a few of the ultimate facts of
life, that we may like or dislike, understand or
not, but which are facts.

Such is something hke the first impression that
Mr. Bernard Shaw may fairly make on one who
reads or sees his plays. Not that one will neces-
sarily admire him or care about his ideas, but it
seems very hard to deny them entirely or to get
round them and him. You are on his side
throughout the play, even if, when it is over, you
are astonished to find what company you have been
keeping.

First impressions and second thoughts are often

122 BERNARD SHAW

different. They are with Mr. Shaw. First im-
pressions will be more or less of the kind that I
have described: second thoughts are sure to be
anything except that. The particular change
that comes over one in regard to Mr. Shaw is that
his white light loses brilliancy, and perhaps goes
out. That is to say, shortly after you have been
decidedly under the influence of his brilliancy, his
cleverness, his realities, you find yourself not quite
sure just what those ideas were that so short a
time ago seemed, if not indubitable, yet at least
absolutely there. For this there is a twofold
' reason.

The first is that, though he writes plays, Mr.
/ Shaw does not present his ideas dramatically.
/ They are as they happen to be stated in the dia-
I logue, they are what they are, that is all, — and
enough, too, some may think. But for a drama-
. tist it is not enough. The drama has particular
/ ways of giving impressions. They are very ef-
fective ways, and they result often in powerful
and long-continued impressions. If, however, a
man writes plays and does not avail himself of the
possibilities of the drama, then he gets all the
drawbacks of the drama without its attendant
advantages. And as a means of presenting ideas
the drama has one serious drawback, namely, lack
of space. The dramatist has the means of com-

BERNARD SHAW 123

pensating for this disadvantage, he can even turn
it to his own purpose. He will make up for his
lack of opportunity in statement somehow; if he
is going to do anything, he will have action, sit-
uation, characters to carry the thing, to make it
stay in our mind, to serve us as tokens of the ideas.
If we do not have this, if we merely have the people
on the stage telling each other one thing or an-
other, even if it be in epigrammatic dialogue, we
shall not get any more out of it than we usually
do in hearing people tell of things. We cannot
expect to remember all that we are told; we may
remember or we may not, according as the ideas
strike us at the time. Now " Widowers' Houses "
and " Mrs. Warren's Profession," which are the
two of Mr. Shaw's plays that have the least in-
teresting ideas, are the two of which the idea re-
mains most readily in the mind, because in each
^ casgy what idea there is, is expressed in a dramatic
way] it is embodied in a Bgure, VivielTTeturning
to her work at Frazer and Warren's, Trench
shaking hands with Mr. Sartorius; these people
remain in our minds in a manner sufficiently sug-
gestive of the idea that is necessitated by the ex-
istence of each. But the other plays do not leave
much of an idea; admirable characters some of
them have, and to be remembered for themselves
(the waiter, the Reverend James, 'Enery Straker),

124 BERNARD SHAW

but not for any ideas Implicit in them. So the
ideas have to trust to whatever statement of them
there may happen to be, and in a drama such
statement is always insufficient; sometimes in a
good play we have explanations of theory, like
Graf Trast's disquisition on honour in " Die
Ehre," but generally the dialogue of a play is not
well fitted for that purpose. We do not, then,
remember Mr. Shaw's ideas very well, and thus in
a short time he becomes, as far as any efiFect is
concerned, much like anybody else.

The second reason that his ideas do not affect
us much is hardly worth mentioning after the first.
It is that his ideas, as a rule, are not such as can
in any way be promulgated on the stage. Some
ideas can: the constant effort of the idealist, the
constant strife of the individual, — these ideas (it
is fair to call them so) can be dramatically pre-
sented. They may not be worth so much in the
practical affairs of life as a correct understand-
ing of the way that man is going to get married
in his development into future ages, or the way
man should manage whatever marriage he happens
to be concerned in now, but they seem to be more
susceptible of dramatic presentation. Take a
thesis Hke that of " Man and Superman " or of
" Candida," if you can get at it. It will be found
to be a so^sJ^generalisation, which, even to be

BERNARD SHAW 125

considered, must be presented either on the basis
of reason or of authority. A play Is the place
for neither. The Germans are apt to think that
Shakespeare wrote his plays to present great and
often complicated social Ideas, but If he did he
was wasting his time, for that Is not the kind of
idea the drama can present effectively. It can
present the conception of the disharmony of the
man of thought In a world of action as In " Ham-
let," the place of young love In an old civilisation
that Is tired of it, as In " Romeo and Juliet," but
those are much simpler notions.

But of course It is of no earthly consequence
whether Mr. Shaw Is a dramatist or not. He can
write most amusing plays, and, now that the
whirhgig of time has spun a bit, we can see them
on the stage. And If we do not always get his
Ideas, — or at least do not remember them when
we do get them, — yet still something remains. We
have had a constant challenge and stimulus, a fre-
quent opening of the window. We shall con-
stantly turn to his work with the desire for reality
and the curiosity to know the essential under the
superficial, and the assurance that by holding on
and constantly purifying our vision, we may see
well enough to get a step or two nearer the truth.

STEPHEN PHILLIPS

*^ Suddenly, out of a clear sky, the poetic
drama Is upon us."

Some time ago a gifted and brilliant critic
began an article with these extraordinary words.
They served him chiefly as introduction to an ac-
count of a particular poetic drama which had been
produced with " large and wholesome and prudent
success " at Pittsburg. But they were inspired
by Mr. Beerbohm Tree's acceptance of the play
of " Herod," by Mr. Stephen Phillips.

I quote them now, because they made such a
Singular impression upon me that I think they
may appeal to others. They seem to me to repre-
sent a very curious critical frame of mind, I think
it should be called ; a sort of disposition, as it were,
a feeling that there is such a thing as " the poetic
'drama," that its appearance has been earnestly
looked and longed for, that by one act of good-
natured magic on the part of Mr. Beerbohm Tree,
a great consummation is about to come to pass,
and that an epoch-making moment is at hand, —
or rather was.

126

STEPHEN PHILLIPS 127

I may be singular in not having ever held such a
Tiew, but I confess that, though I should be glad
to see more good plays at the theatre, I do not
care a pin to have them poetic dramas.

In fact, when Mr. Phillips seeks to restore
poetry to the English stage, he strives against I''
wind and tide. Every great poet of the 19th cen-
tury tried the same thing and failed. Coleridge
finally succeeded in getting Sheridan to produce
" Remorse " at Drury Lane ; it was successful and
is now not even read. Shelley chose the drama
mainly as a means for lyric poetry, and should
not be counted. Keats, Mr. Phillips's forerunner,
— ^but it would be pressing the matter to say that
he did anything of the sort, though he did write a
play. So did Wordsworth, though it was never
presented. Scott's " Doom of Devorgoil " was
by no means as successful as the commonplace
dramatisations that followed upon the Waverley
novels as they appeared. Browning wrote several
plays for the theatre, and though they were not
failures, they have not kept the stage. The same
must be said of Tennyson. As for Swinburne, it
is not probable that he meant his plays for the
stage any more than did Byron, who, however,
appears occasionally in a spectacular " Sarda-
napalus " or a literary " Manfred."

In fact, if we compare the 19th century with

128 STEPHEN PHILLIPS

the age of Elizabeth we have a curious contrsist.
About 1600 we have a large group of dramatists
who as poets were at least of the second order
("all but one "), producing plays that appear
to have pleased and delighted the play-going pub-
lic, while three centuries later we have a series of
poets of greater poetic power than the Eliza-
bethans, who are certainly unable to hold the
stage, or, as a rule, even to obtain a footing there.
Further we may remark that even as literature,
as poetry, the drama of the 19th century is not
comparable to that of the 16th.

Such is the verdict of history which Mr. Phil-
lips or any one else who attempts *' the poetic
drama " moves to set aside. If we ask as to the
grounds, we have the rather vague idea that there
ought to be poetry on our stage, that the drama
is the highest form of poetry, that It is a shame
that we cannot have poetry at the theatre as well
as the French or the Germans.

Turning the matter over in our minds, we may
ask why any other poet should think of succeed-
ing in the direction where the most successful
poetry of Shakespeare is a failure. Mr. Bernard
Shaw says that Shakespeare " still holds the stage
so well that it is not impossible to meet old play-
goers who have witnessed public performances of
more than thirty out of his thirty-seven reputed

STEPHEN PHILLIPS 129

plays, a dozen of them fairly often, and half a
dozen over and over again." He adds that he
has himself seen more than twenty-three. I do
not doubt the statement, but it is beside the mark.
There is no doubt that perhaps a dozen of Shake-
speare's plays hold the stage, but certainly not by
virtue of their poetry. Rather, it may be well be-
lieved, in spite of it. Not long ago I saw, as did
many others who were greatly pleased by it, a
very beautiful performance of " Romeo and Ju-
liet " given with wonderful scenery and costume
and very good acting. It is easy to say of such
performances that they are very pretty but not
Shakespeare, but I should not have said so of this
one. It did not give us everything of Shakespeare,
but it did give us much. I do not think that ever
before was I so impressed with the beauty, the
pathos, the tragedy of the old story. But with
all that, the poetry of the play was not there : the
characters, the action, the situations, the settings
were strongly given, but the Shakespearean poetry
seemed absent in spite of the words. In the beauti-
ful scene beginning :

" Wilt thou begone.? It is not yet near day,"

we had a strong and realistic presentation, but the
poetry of it seemed to me to have vanished. It may
be that the lines were not very well given, but I

130 STEPHEN PHILLIPS

incline to think that the reason for my impression
was that the adequate circumstance dulled the
imagination, that the realism was too much for the
poetry.

Some of the most sympathetic critics of Shake-
speare have held some such notion. Lamb could
not bear " Lear " on the stage, nor Hazlitt " A
Midsummer Night's Dream," and both for the
same reason, that the realism destroyed the
poetry. So thought one at least who saw " Ulys-
ses " a year or so ago.

" This isle," says Ulysses,
*^ Set in the glassy ocean's azure swoon,
With sward of parsley and of violet,
And poplars shivering in a silvery dream,
And swell of cedar lawn, and sandal wood,
And these low-crying birds that haunt the
deep."
Or

** Little bewildered ghosts on this great night !
They flock about me —

Wandering on their way
To banks of asphodel and spirit flowers.
Ah, a girl's face ! A boy there with bright hair ! '*

Are not those exquisite passages? Surely, but
what have they to do with the theatre.? Cer-
tainly the stage setting of " Ulysses " was ade-

STEPHEN PHILLIPS 131

quate. Many of the scenes were extremely beauti-
ful. I remember the gradual taking form and
shape of the coast of Ithaca as being particularly
so. But for all that the poetry did not har-
monise.

To revert to Shakespeare once more. I am
inclined (in my dry-as-dust, academic, mole-like
way) to account for his practical exclusion from
the stage. Managers who watch the public mind
say that Shakespeare generally lacks " heart-in-
terest,'' that he presents no problems, or some-
thing of the sort. But the matter lies deeper.

Shakespeare wrote his plays for a stage very
different from ours. It will perhaps be said that
ours is better, that we can give his plays much
more effectively than the Globe Theatre could do,
and also that Shakespeare would gladly have taken
advantage of our possibilities had he been able.
These things may be so and yet the important
thing is not, say, that we can give Shakespeare
better than his own theatre could, but that we da
give them very differently; and also, not that
Shakespeare would have written with pleasure for
a more developed stage than he had, but that he
did write especially for a stage less developed than
our own.

It is wrong to imagine Shakespeare as an in-
spired barbarian, his eye in fine frenzy rolling.

132 STEPHEN PHILLIPS

pouring out poetry for posterity. What he
really thought of posterity in connection with his
plays may never be known, but there can be little
doubt that he wrote his plays with a definite con-
sideration of just the conditions under which they
were to be presented. There was undoubtedly an
element of the business man (surely a part of
Shakespeare) dealing with the business proposi-
tion, namely the Globe Theatre and the Lord
Chamberlain's men. It was not that Shakespeare
wrote merely to please the public. It was that he
knew his powers so well that he could easily please
the public and be a poet too. So he dealt with
the actual conditions in his own way. Instead of
grumbling at the interruptions of his comic ac-
tors, he used them for his own ends. Instead of
shrugging his shoulders, merely, at the clumsy
way in which his boy heroines managed their
skirts, he put them into doublet and hose when-
ever he could. Instead of being cribbed and con-
fined by the simple scaffold of a stage, he used
every opportunity given him by the stage-manage-
ment of his day. Instead of feeling any lack of
the scenery with which the masques of Ben Jon-
son were beautified, he took advantage of the
chance for descriptive poetry.

And he produced a drama very appropriate to
the Elizabethan stage. That stage relied almost

STEPHEN PHILLIPS 133

entirely upon the dramatist and the actor. The
dramatist provided a mobile and fluent dramatic
poem, and the actor presented it with his best abil-
ity in declamation and gesture. Our conception
of realism at the theatre was unknown. Our idea
of spectacle was confined to the amusements of the
upper classes.

So far as real conditions are concerned the
Shakespearean Hamlet was an actor clad in the
costume of his day, standing on a stage in the
midst of the audience, even surrounded on the
stage itself by a half-circle of spectators. Let
us think of that when next we see the melancholy
Dane in appropriate costume (of the 11th century
or the 16th, as the manager happens to choose)
seated on an antique chair on a stage that gives
with historical accuracy all the circumstance of
the palace of Elsinore. And if we will so think, let
us ask whether the poetry written for the situa-
tion in which there was nothing else will be likely
to satisfy our hearts when our eyes are glutted by
the brilliant actuality that has become so impor-
tant to us.

I think not. The poet at the present day who
writes for the stage deliberately puts himself into
competition with costume, scenery, and music.
Wagner alone has consciously sought harmony
in such competition, and with Wagner his music

184 STEPHEN PHILLIPS

has certainly triumphed at the sacrifice of the
rest.

Mr. Phillips may succeed on the stage, but it
will be in spite of his poetry and not by reason of
it. Let me speak again of the newspaper story,
which is typical, if not true. When he read
" Herod '' to Mr. Beerbohm Tree, the actor-man-
ager listened without remark until he came to a
place where there was the sound of distant trum-
pets. At this he began to have confidence. " He
had not known that I had been an actor," re-
marked with modest pride the poet who had seen
pass unnoticed the lines :

" And all behind him is
A sense of something coming on the world,
A crying of dead prophets from their tombs,
A singing of dead poets from their graves.

I ever dread the young."

No, I fear that poetry has no place on our stage
and that she will not have, at least just at pres-
ent. The Elizabethan drama gave poetry to
people who could not otherwise get it. It was
public poetry, recited for those who could not
read. Do we to-day wish to listen to poetry.^ It
may be a doubtful question, but I inchne to think
that we read so much that we do not wish merely
to listen to anything. Who is there when some-

STEPHEN PHILLIPS 135

thing IS read aloud from a newspaper, but wants to
take the paper and read for himself? Who is
there that having heard a poem from the lips, even
of a good reader, does not wish to take the book
in his own hand and read it. Poetry is hardly
a public art. It is true that Lowell read an Ode
on Commemoration Day and Holmes read many
poems to the class of '29, and we should all be glad
to have heard either. But in the main we like to
have our poetry in the privacy of our firesides,
of our pensive citadels, of our hearts. I have no
desire to hear beautiful poetry in a crowd: I had
rather be by myself and have it alone. So, unless
I am singular in this respect, poetry will not flour-
ish on our stage.

The attentive and logical reader will probably
incline to think that this is a short-sighted view
in a period which has produced the poetical
dramas of Rostand, and various others. I can-
not help that. I am not going to try to explain
why the various nations of Europe are different.
The French theatre is different from ours and so
IS French poetry. " To what shall we attribute
it," wrote somebody in the Quarterly Review^
" that the frivolous and ignorant audience of
Paris, content with a dark and heavy house, a
dirty scene, and six fiddlers, shall listen with
earnest attention to a lifeless translation of

136 STEPHEN PHILLIPS

* Philoctetes,' while the phlegmatic and reflecting
citizens of London, in a gaudy house glittering
with innumerable lights, demand show and song
and bustle and procession and supernumerary
murders, even in the animated plays of Shake-
speare? . . . But, whatever the cause, the fact
is undoubted, and whoever writes for the theatre
must submit to take it into account." That was
nearly a century ago; to-day the circumstances
are very different, but not the essential fact. I
follow the advice and take account of it in my
view that, whatever may be the tendency and
nature of the Latin races, the English and Ameri-
cans do not value poetry at the theatre or any-
where else in public.

Of course it does not follow that because poetry
is not for the stage, there can be nothing for the
stage but costume and scenery. There is room for
much else, and whatever be its name, it is some-
thing which will always tend to make the stage
finer the more of it there is. There is a passage
in Byron's "Manfred "that will illustrate the mat-
ter better than I can explain it. It comes in that
scene in the Hall of Arimanes where the phantom
of Astarte rises and stands in the midst. Manfred
speaks :

" Astarte ! My beloved ! speak to me :
I have so much endured — so much endure—

STEPHEN PHILLIPS 18T

Look on me ! The grave hath not changed thee

more
Than I am changed for thee. Thou lovedst me
Too much, as I loved thee ; we were not made
To torture thus each other, though it were
The deadliest sin to love as we have loved.
Say that thou loath'st me not — that I do bear
This punishment for both — that thou wilt be
One of the blessed — and that I shall die ;
For hitherto all hateful things conspire
To bind me in existence — in a life
Which makes me shrink from immortality —
A future like the past. I cannot rest.
I know not what I ask nor what I seek ;
I feel but what thou art, and what I am ;
And I would hear yet once before I perish
The voice that was my music — speak to me T
For I have called on thee in the still night.
Startled the slumbering birds from the hushed

boughs.
And woke the mountain wolves, and made the

caves
Acquainted with thy vainly echoed name.
Which answered me — ^many things answered

me —
Spirits and men — but thou wert silent all.
Yet speak to me ! I have outwatched the stars,.
And gazed o'er heaven in vain search of thee.

138 STEPHEN PHILLIPS

Speak to me ! I have wandered o'er the earth,

And never found thy likeness — speak to me !

Look on the fiends around — they feel for me ;

I fear them not and feel for thee alone —

Speak to me ! though it be in wrath — ^but say —

I reck not what — but let me hear thee once —

This once — once more!

Phantom of Astarte. Manfred.

Manfred. Say on, say on — I live but in the
sound — it is thy voice!

Phantom. Manfred! To-morrow ends thine
earthly ills. Farewell.

Manfred. Yet one word more — am I forgiven.'^

Phantom. Farewell !

Manfred. Say shall we meet again .^

Phantom. Farewell !

Manfred. One word for mercy! Say thou
lovest me —

Phantom. Manfred ! ''

(The Phantom disappears.)

I presume that the imaginative, the apprecia-
tive, the artistic reader of this passage is always
profoundly moved by it. I was never specially
moved until I saw the play given upon the stage.
Then, amid a good deal of frippery and fooUsh-
ness, the intonation alone of that last word " Man-
fred ! " gave the whole scene a glory that it has

STEPHEN PHILLIPS 189

never lost. In a life in which (like most) much
average work and play, much old commonplace and
new experience tends to dull the keen sense of the
beauty of bygone moments, there remains to me
always the poignant passion of that voice as from
the open tomb, giving an emotion so intense that
current reality, even, fades before it into a forgot-
ten dream. Some readings in Heredia, the sight of
the Winged Victory as she stands at the head of
the staircase, the Garden act of " Tristan," the
first thrilling dehght at the pictures of Rembrandt
— ^not to mention matters that do not belong here
— ^none have a surer place in my recollection than
this. I could say as Hazlitt said of the Man with
the Glove : " What a look is there. . . that draws
the evil out of human life, that while we look at it
transfers the same sentiment to our own breasts
and makes us feel as if nothing mean or httle
could disturb us again."

But this is not the poetry but the situation. And
it is the situation that the drama, and especially on
the stage, can give as nothing else can. Everybody
can parallel the case, from the prose drama as
well as the poetic — I could say myself a passage
in the third act of " Sodom's Ende" ("Reinheit !")
as well as the end of the third act of " L'Aiglon."
And those who go much to the theatre count on
such moments, for they are far more a possibility

140 STEPHEN PHILLIPS

for the stage than for literature or even poetry.
I cannot recall a case in my seeing Shakespeare
save where Mr. Booth sprang up after the play
in " Hamlet."

But to return to Mr. Phillips. It was prob-
ably this electric moment that Mr. Tree noticed
when he heard of the trumpets in Herod. Mr.
Phillips, as a former actor, doubtless knows a dra-
matic situation. Whether he has power to create
one of the first order is another matter. There
are situations and situations; a single melodrama
may have a dozen. But will they be real ones.'^
One needs the stage to judge. So far as reading
is concerned, I should say we had one at the very
end of " Herod."

Of course one hopes that Mr. Phillips will
create more, for if he does he is a friend to the
human race, immeasurably lightening its miseries
and adding to its joys. To have a wonderful
possession of that sort is a great thing. Even
so, however, what has it to do with poetry, unless
it be that poetry is smuggled in along with the
drama for literary respectability's s^ke, as some
earnest critics would have us believe that an idea
may be smuggled into poetry as a sort of ballast?

Mr. Phillips has written very charming poetry,
some lines of which are apropos here. They
occur in the words of Idas to Marpessa.

STEPHEN PHILLIPS 141

** Not for this only do I love thee, but

Because infinity upon thee broods ;

And thou art full of whispers and of shadows.

Thou meanest what the sea has striven to say

So long, and yearned up the cliffs to tell ;

Thou art what all the winds have uttered not,

What the still night suggesteth to the heart.

Thy voice is like to music heard ere birth,

Some spirit lute touched on a spirit sea ;

Thy face remembered is from other worlds,

It has been died for, though I know not when,

It has been sung of, though I know not where.

It has the strangeness of the luring West,

And of sad sea-horizons ; beside thee

I am aware of other times and lands.

Of birth far back, of lives in many stars.

O beauty lone, and like a candle clear

In this dark country of the world ! Thou art

My woe, my early light, my music dying."

Those are very beautiful lines, but if they rightly
represent Mr. Phillips' power, do they not mark
his language at least as not dramatic?

But if a man write dramas — poetic or not —
for which the stage can do but little, it does not
follow that the dramas are without value. Of
course the judgment of half a dozen theatrical
critics or of a whole theatrical audience will never

142 STEPHEN PHILLIPS

establish that. They may say, or show clearly
by their actions, that the play Is not suited to the
stage, — of which the purpose Is not so much, as
an eminent lover of the theatre Is said to have
remarked, " to hold the mirror up to nature " as
it Is rather to offer the public a very special and
delightful kind of pleasure. But a drama may
not be In the least suited to the stage, and yet be
a very good thing for all that. There are and
have been many stages — Greek, Elizabethan,
French, our own, not to mention Chinese and
Japanese; no play was ever written that could
suit them all, although each form of theatre must
offer some opportunity for creating the true dra-
matic thrill. A play cannot be good for all;
perhaps It may be good for none, and yet be a
source of very great pleasure to " those that like
that sort of thing."

Just what that sort of thing is, is not a very
difficult matter to state. There Is a convenience
in the dramatic form that enables some men to
express themselves better in that way than in any
other. Browning was a man of that kind: he had
a curiosity In regard to life and a sympathy for
living people that made him enter into his char-
acters and speak for them, as It were. He did
so in his first poem, " Pauline,'' which was a mono-
logue ; in his second, " Paracelsus," which was a

STEPHEN PHILLIPS 148

dramatic poem with no possibilities for the stage;
and he did so in " Strafford," which he made a
regular stage-play for Macready. Then — if I
may touch dangerous ground for a moment — ^he
wrote " Sordello." Tennyson, the story goes,
said he understood but two lines in this poem —
the first and last — and that neither was true.
Now, the lines are as follows :

" Who will may hear Bordello's story told.'*

" Who would has heard Sordello's story told."

It may be admitted that " Sordello " is not a very
simple narrative, but it certainly is a narrative.
The lines are quite true, for the story is told —
well or ill, of course — that is, it is not in dramatic
form. Browning explains this at the beginning
of the poem, in a passage which was presumably
beyond Tennyson's comprehension, but which now,
thanks to sixty years of Browning clubs, will be
as clear as cosmic jelly.

" Never, I should warn you first,
Of my own choice had this, if not the worst,
Yet not the best expedient, served to tell
A story I could body forth so well
By making speak, myself kept out of view,
The very man as he was wont to do.
And leaving you to say the rest for him.'*

144 STEPHEN PHILLIPS

That puts the matter fairly enough: Browning
liked to let the man speak for himself, so he com-
monly wrote in dramatic form. When he under-
took to tell the tale himself the results were not
so good. The same desire came over Tennyson
as he grew older, and, though his earlier poems
are mostly narratives, his later volumes are full
of dramatic poetry. Every dramatic poem is not
a play, but a play is dramatic poetry of the most
developed and fullest kind. Browning and Ten-
nyson both wrote plays as well as other forms of
dramatic poetry, and so have various poets, often
without much thought of the stage, like Byron.

After all, why not.? I think some of Mr.
Phillips' best poetry is in his plays. I have
quoted lines from " Ulysses " and some from
" Herod." Here are some from " Paolo and
Francesca " :

Francesca. " All ghostly grew the sun, unreal
the air.
Then when we kissed.

Paolo, And in that kiss our souls
Together flashed, and now they are one flame,
Which nothing can put out, nothing divide.
Francesca. Kiss me again! I smile at what

may chance.
Paolo. Again and yet again ! and here and here.

STEPHEN PHILLIPS 145

Let me with kisses burn this body away,
That our two souls may dart together free.
I fret at intervention of the flesh,
And would clasp you — ^you that but Inhabit
This lovely house.

Francesca, Break open then the door.
And let my spirit out."

I have not seen the play acted. But those who^
saw it on the stage, did they not perhaps " fret at
interference of the flesh"? It would seem as if
it might well be so, as one reads that fourth act.
After all, is it the actual love aff^air that attracts
us, that common Intrigue so like a thousand others
save for the Intensity of Its passion? Do we want
to see two live, beautiful, charmingly dressed
young people In each other's arms? I think
hardly. It Is the essence of the poetry, the soul
going out of Itself, that we want, and that Is in
the lines. There Is another " Francesca " on the
stage, and that, I am told, has too much real blood
in It. I should think it likely. Real blood, Uke a
real pump or any realistic setting, distracts the
mind, which for the time would be conscious only
of Its own emotion. It Is like a magic-lantern
show going on with the curtain raised and day-
light coming In.

Mr. Phillips has power to stir those subtle ele-

146 STEPHEN PHILLIPS

ments of our being that respond to poetry. It
seems that he wishes also to stir us in a different
way. It is to be hoped that he will not be like the
dog with the bone in his mouth, who lost his own
chop in trying to get another. Or, rather, the fig-
ure is wrong, for it is we who lose, if loss there be.
Mr. Phillips will always have the satisfaction of
being a poet.

MAETERLINCK

It was some years before M. Rostand became
a familiar figure in the literature of the time that
M. Maeterlinck appeared, and in a very different
manner. Although a dramatist, he became known
from the printed versions of his plays. It was in
1893 that translations of his earlier plays were
published in America, and up to that time few in
this country had ever heard of him, fewer were
acquainted with his work, and none had ever seen
his works upon the stage.

M. Maeterlinck was introduced to the wider
world of letters under the cloud of comparison
with Shakespeare. In America and England, at
least, he was therefore received with a smile, as one
of those humorous " movements " that flutter after
each other like exquisite humming-birds through
the Parisian world of letters. He had been called,
by M. Octave Mirbeau in the Figaro, the Belgian
Shakespeare. If he had been called the OUendorf
Shakespeare, the Puppetshow Shakespeare, or the
Nursery Shakespeare, the name would have con-
veyed more accurately the impression which he

147

148 MAETERLINCK

made at first. Some people became very angry at
him: Max Nordau, a violent person of that day,
called him a mental cripple, an idiotic driveller,
an imbecile plagiarist. In general, people merely
could not understand him at all, though they could
see that some of his ways were funny. The well-
known dialogue — people may not remember that
it was quite as remarkable as the burlesques on it :

MALEINE

^ Wait ! I am beginning to see,

NURSE

Do you see the city.?

MALEINE

No.

NURSE

And the castle.'*

MALEINE

No.

NURSE

It must be on the other side.

MALEINE

And yet . . • There is the sea.

NURSE

There is the sea.?*

MALEINE

Yes, yes ; the sea. It is green.

MAETERLINCK 149

NURSE

But then you ought to see the city. Let us
look.

MALEINE

I see the Kghthouse.

NUESE

You see the lighthouse?

MALEINE

Yes; I think it is the lighthouse.

NURSE

But, then, you ought to see the city.

MALEINE

I do not see the city.

NURSE

You do not see the city?

MALEINE

I do not see the city.

NURSE

Do you see the belfry?

MALEINE .

No.

NURSE

This is extraordinary."

It was, very. There were undoubtedly things
to be said for such dialogue; still it was funny,
though not uproariously so. Then his princesses,

150 MAETERLINCK

the babies with long hair: in one piece seven of
them, each as infantile as all the others put to-
gether— no one takes them seriously. There was
certainly a good deal that was humorous about
M. Maeterlinck.

Nor did those who admired his work always hit
upon just the right things. I will here mention
myself 5 merely as an example of one who was much
taken with M. Maeterlinck's first writings and yet
was quite unable to see what has turned out to be
the important thing in them. It chanced that
another poet published about the same time a col-
lection of dramatic pieces which resembled in some
ways M. Maeterlinck's plays. It is not important
whether or no they were imitations — probably not.
But they were very like them, and I allow myself
to quote a few lines written ten years ago about
them.

It was under the title " The Antennae of
Poetry," and although the article itself showed
little critical keenness or foresight, the title, as
appeared later, was not a bad one. In my then
view people like Maeterlinck were experimental-
ists, and fulfilled a useful function in poetry, or
any other kind of art, being always on the lookout
for things that were new, amusing, or edifying.
And in what they offered, as in these cases, the
interesting thing lay largely in the mode of ap-

MAETERLINCK 151

preciatlon or presentation. " They are not con-
ceived,'* I remarked, " in any approach to the
classic manner, but in a manner ultra-romantic.
For although the main emotion is always present
before us, it is not presented simply, but always
by means of a multitude of extremely fine and deli-
cate nuances, indefinite hopes and fears, presenti-
ments, imaginings and spiritual accompaniments,
premonitions almost occult, faint ripples of emo-
tion, little wavelets that skim over the waves of
passion." Such to my mind was the character-
istic of Mr. Sharpens work, and of M. Maeter-
linck's, too, except that the latter was more of a
true dramatist, having greater power of drawing
character.

It was not very clever of me to have found
nothing more to say on the first five plays of M.
Maeterlinck. That I should have entirely missed
the real purport of his idea and been wholly taken
up by the accessories, shows one of the practical
difficulties that any one has to meet in dealing with
a new eff^ort of romanticism. What I noticed, the
general tone and method, the character-drawing,
all that amounted to nothing; M. Maeterlinck
would have been himself without either quality.

One thing in the article, however, was, I believe,
good, and that, as I have just said, was the title.
Not in precisely the manner in which I conceived

t

152 MAETERLINCK

it, but still in a way near enough to mention was
the name significant. And this I say, not because
I think so myself, but because almost the same
phrase was afterward used by Maeterlinck in
" Le Tresor des Humbles," published some time
afterward, when he spoke of Novalis as " one of
those extraordinary beings who are the antennae
of the human soul." That was not precisely the
same thing, but it came rather near it. I was
thinking of poetry, and Maeterlinck was thinking
of life. As it turned out, that was the main line
of his interest. People who considered him only
as a curious experimenter in dramatic form were
wrong about him, as also those who bothered their
heads and their readers by talking about symbol-
ism. Symbolist he may have been to some degree,
and experimenter, and various other things. But
in the main his interest was in philosophy, and has
been ever since. He writes plays or studies the
habits of bees, not merely as diversions, but as
means o£_expression or attainment of something
concerning the problem of life.

Before the publication of " Le Tresor des
Humbles," M. Maeterlinck had been known as a
philosophic man of letters. Every serious author
is more or less philosophic; he has something to
say of the general principles of life ; he can hardly
avoid having some philosophy, although he may

MAETERLINCK 153

make no effort to state it systematically or even
directly. In this new book, however, M. Maeter-
linck became a literary philosopher and sketched
for his readers his theory of life. The remark-
able thing about the book was not that M. Maeter-
linck should have a philosophy, but that he should
try to express it definitely, for the main idea in
style of his previous work had been that his
thoughts were not such as could be definitely ex-
pressed, and indeed that idea was rather the
foundation of this book. Still, for all that, by
" Le Tresor des Humbles " M. Maeterlinck pre-
sented himself as a philosopher of a known school,
and his work was seen to have a place in a known
tendency of our time.

M. Maeterlinck now appeared to be a mystic.
The name Mystic is a vague one and comprehends
people as far apart as Plotinus and George Fox.
Mystics are perhaps not much farther known than
as they are known to be mystics. Still the word
gives us some idea of a standpoint. A mystic I / yf
take to be a person who believes in the acquirement /
of truth by intuition rather than by any process
of reason and argument. Thus the person who
sees visions is a mystic, the person who has pre-
sentiments, the person who has something borne in
upon him. Any one who believes in gaining truth
by some process more direct than the ordinary

164 MAETERLINCK

process of rational thought is, in so far, a mystic.
There have been Christian mystics and mystics
who were not Christians; the word has been very
loosely used. M. Maeterlinck, like others in what
was called in those days the neo-Christian move-
ment, had been interested in Carlyle and Emerson,
but also by those more commonly thought of as
mystics — Eckhard, Ruysbroek, Boehme.

His particular view, however, as presented in
" Le Tresor des Humbles," was not the mysticism
of any of these. It was, I believe, his own. " It
is idle," says his book at the beginning, " to think
that by means of words, any real communication
can ever pass from one man to another." How,
then.'* By Silence: in the great silent moments
of life, such moments as everybody knows, experi-
enced in love, sport, work, religion, not necessarily
moments of great emotion, but moments in which
we seem to become aware of much. It is M.
Maeterlinck's idea that in such moments we may
become aware of much; indeed, that in such mo-
ments only do we get to know anything worth
knowing. Those who attune themselves to such
moments, who learn to use them, find deep mean-
ings in presentiments, in the strange impression
produced by a chance meeting or a look (the
words are in the main Maeterlinck's own), in the
secret laws of sympathy and antipathy, of elective

MAETERLINCK 156

and instinctive affinities, in the overwhelming in-
fluence of the thing that had not been spoken.

The precise view of the universe which M.
Maeterlinck held to result from such moments, or
from such receptivity, need not be stated just here.
What is of interest now is to show the dramatic
side of it. It is obvious that such an idea has dra-
matic possibilities. In the matter of conveying
an idea without saying anything — by the secret
means of sympathy, instinctive affinity, strange
impression — ^Mme. Sarah Bernhardt would seem
to be a mystic of the first water. It was not pre-
cisely such powers, however, that M. Maeterlinck
had in mind when he thought of the drama as a
means for the expression of his idea. What he
had in mind he said in an essay on " The Tragical
in Daily Life," a short statement which put a
whole dramatic art into a nutshell. For a phi-
losopher of M. Maeterlinck's type the essay is sin-
gularly definite and logical in its arrangement.

First, as to subject: must it always be some
violence.'^ " Does the soul flower only on nights
of storm .'^ Hitherto, doubtless, this idea has pre-
vailed." But a new idea is becoming known, and
he turns to painting to show that Marius triumph-
ing over the Cimbrians, or the assassination of the
Duke of Guise, is no longer the type. The painter
*' will place on his canvas a house lost in the heart

166 MAETERLINCK

of the country, an open door at the end of a
passage, a face and hands at rest, and by these
simple images will he add to our consciousness of
life, which is a possession that it is no more pos-
sible to lose.'' Nor will the drama deal with '^x-
/fcraordinary convulsions of life; why should the
dramatist imagine that we shall delight in witness-
ing the very same acts that brought joy to the
hearts of the barbarians, with whom murder, out-
rage, and treachery were matters of daily occur-
rence ?

So much for subject: next, M. Maeterlinck
spoke of action, or, rather, the lack of it — and
presented his view of a " static theatre," namely,
a drama in which there was no action at all, a
view which followed naturally from his conception
of subject, which suggests the question. Are these
motives suitable to the drama? It has only been
shown that they are possible in painting, which
is something very different. It is under this head
that one comes on the locus classicus of the static
dramaturgy.

" I admire Othello, but he does not appear to me
to live the august daily life of Hamlet, who has
time to live, inasmuch as he does not act. Othello
is admirably jealous. But is it not perhaps an
ancient error to imagine that it is at the moments
when this passion, or others of equal violence, pos-

MAETERLINCK 157

sesses us, that we live our truest lives? I have
grown to believe that an old man, seated in his
armchair, waiting patiently, with his lamp beside
him ; giving unconscious ear to all the eternal laws
that reign about his house, interpreting, without
comprehending, the silence of doors and windows
and the quivering voice of the hght, submitting
with bent head to the presence of his soul and his
destiny — an old man who conceives not that all
the powers of this world, like so many heedful
servants, are mingling and keeping vigil in his
room, who suspects not that the very sun itself is
supporting in space the little table against which
he leans, or that every star in heaven and every
fibre of the soul are directly concerned in the move-
ment of an eyelid that closes, or a thought that
springs to birth — ^I have grown to believe that he,
motionless as he is, does yet live in reality a deeper,
more human, and more universal life than the
lover who strangles his mistress, the captain who
conquers in battle, or * the husband who avenges
his honour.' "

And finally as to the dialogue. It is the com-
mon opinion that the words of a play should be
directed especially to the action of the play, and,
theoretically, one would be likely to say that there
should not be any word at all that should not get
the action ahead. M. Maeterlinck pronounces to.

158 MAETERLINCK

the contrary. The only words that count in his
view are those that at first seem quite useless. It
is the words which are caused by the demands and
necessities of the case that are as insignificant as
the action itself. Who thinks that the best con-
versation at dinner consists in asking for the
salt, or saying you will have some bread .^^ Here
the only words of high worth are the useless ones.
So in the drama, says M. Maeterlinck, who, by
the way, does not use so material a figure. It is
the super-essential meaning that we must open
our ears for; it is that which we must get if we
are to get anything at all.

All of which is very systematically reasoned out
on a basis not at all difficult to understand.

What, then, were the dramas made upon this
basis, so diflTerent from the common theory of the
day.'* A theme from the simplest daily life, an
action where nothing happens, a dialogue where
the only words of value are the meaningless ones.
One will readily suppose that any drama made on
such principles will excite all the astonishment
that was shown on the first appearance of the
plays of Maeterlinck.

It will be a surprise to those who do not remem-
ber, to learn that the only plays of M. Maeter-
linck's first publication that were received with
scoffing were those in which he did not carry out his

MAETERLINCK 159

principles, so that people could recognise them.
" La Princesse Maleine " and " Les Sept Prin-
cesses " were the two of his first four dramas that
excited great derision. But " Les Aveugles " and
"L'Intrus " — where theme, action, and dialogue v
follow his own ideas — were received with respect.

The first-mentioned plays do notrostensibly at
least, carry out M. Maeterlinck's ideas. What is
the action of " La Princesse Maleine " ? Marius
and the Duke of Guise shrink into insignificance
in comparison with this little lady who goes
through battles and murders to sudden death.
How is it with the " Seven Princesses " ? If their
souls do not flourish in a night of storm it is cer-
tainly in a period of strange agitations. In these
two plays we have nothing simple, natural, nor-
mal; all is as wild as the delights of our despised
ancestors.

But in " L'Intrus " it is not so. It is not a
remarkable scene, only a family around the even-
ing table. Nothing remarkable occurs; indeed,
nothing at all occurs, that we can see. Nothing
is said of any importance save as we happen to
perceive the importance of chance words, and yet
what a powerful little piece it is. How it goes
on the stage I do not know (nor much care till I
may chance to see it), but one cannot read it with-
out feeling its power. " Les Aveugles '' is not

160 MAETERLINCK

quite so consistent ; it is not a matter of ordinary
occurrence for a priest to lead a party of the
blind whom he is overseeing, into a wood, and then
suddenly die. But the piece is almost as effective
as the other.

These two pieces made their impression with
perfect sureness, even though conceived according
to the curious theories we have just noted. It is
true that the ideas which they conveyed were not
hard to grasp: the approach of death, the posi-
tion of humanity with a dead church. There may
have been ideas signified in " La Princesse Ma-
leine " and " Les Sept Princesses,'' but they could
not be so readily imagined. Yet M. Maeterlinck's
theory was, in a measure, justified by these two
failures, for whatever ideas these plays may have
meant to convey was lost in the extravagance of
the subject and the action, even though the dia-
logue was as simple as in the others.

Indeed it is now apparent that, in spite of
theory and in spite of failure, these two were the
typical pieces. The others presented, curiously,
it is true, but by a symbolism by no means un-
common, ideas that could readily be expressed in
other ways, and have often been so expressed.
" There is a stillness of death," says the Father
in " L'Intrus," and reminds us that it is all based
upon a common and everyday conception, and that

MAETERLINCK 161

It represents no new truth and indeed no truth at
all. The ideas are common and have been often
expressed. It was M. MaeterHnck's desire to
present ideas that had not been expressed, that
could not be expressed by common means. Let us
imagine that he wished to convey something in
" La Princesse Maleine " and in " Les Sept Prin-
cesses " ; it is not necessary, nor at present useful,
to try to determine what it was, but the very
nature of the plays leads us to the belief that it
was not anything that could be conveyed by usual
dramatic methods.

With this idea in mind we may turn to " Pelleas
et Melisande." We shall find it in form at least,
like the plays just mentioned, something contrary
to the theories of dramatic art which the author
had put forward not long before. But as those
theories were founded upon a definite and intelli-
gible system (however we may disagree with it),
we may be sure that the opposition is but super-
ficial. " Pelleas et Melisande " is a play of love
and revenge, like various others; it has a suffi-
ciently definite action, like an ordinary play; it
has a dialogue which carries that action along,
as the common stage dialogue does. It would
seem that M. Maeterlinck had persuaded himself
that what appeared to be characteristic in
" L'Intrus " and " Les Aveugles " was not essen-

/

162 MAETERLINCK

tial, that he could gain his effects In the manner
of a conventional play. He therefore has ordi-
nary subject, action, dialogue. If we would get
at his idea, then, we must neglect these convention-
alities and see what is left.

The story of a man whose wife falls in love with
his brother is not essential; if it were we should
suppose that M. Maeterlinck had something es-
sential in common with Stephen Phillips, which
would probably lead us into neglect of the chief
virtues of each. The strange region of romance
with its castles and caverns, its midnight meetings
and violent murderings, that too is not essen-
tial ; if it were, we might imagine that we had to do
with a man like M.Rostand or Hauptmann, though
this is pre-Raphaelite romance and theirs is ro-
mance of very different kind. But the story, the
setting of " Pelleas et Melisande " have too much
in common with other plays for us to think that
they are of prime importance with M. Maeterlinck.
They are the very things he pronounces to be
useless. If we neglect these matters, what is left?

Into a dark, and old, and melancholy world, a
world not utterly without gleams of sunshine and
a flower or two, but still constrained to its gloom
by its own people, and by the people of ages
long past, into such a world comes a spirit of
beauty from a faraway and unknown place. Here

MAETERLINCK 163

in this gloomy world are such people as we know :
a powerful, active man, a child, an old man whose
wisdom has taught him only that the riddle of the
universe is unsolvable, and a young man. What-
ever the relations of these people may have been,
they are disturbed by the newcomer ; the new charm
and beauty bring delight but also discord. It is
the young man that especially understands this
new companion; the feeling of others is but ex-^
ternal and superficial, his understanding is vital.
But conditions are such that they cannot be ta
each other what they might, and both perish ; leav-
ing the world much as it was before, save that there
is a remembrance left of the exquisite and beauti-
ful one, who will some day take the place now made
vacant.

It is not very difiicult to see what there is in that^
• — all that need be said is that M. Maeterlinck does
not deem it necessary to make it very obvious. He
is content to give us his drama — there must be
some action, charajsters, dialogue — and to suggest
to us continually matters of wisdom and destiny
that cannot be put in straightforward words with-
out losing some of their truth; to present to us
the possibility of a life of the spirit which shall be
fuller and more beautiful than the life to which
we are accustomed. Is it then beautiful to love
your brother's wife? we may ask. M. Maeterlinck

164 MAETERLINCK

presumably believes that to love any one is^beau*
ti|ul. He presents spiritual things by common
means ; he wants to convey the idea of a love which
overrides the barriers ©I the intercourse to which
we are accustomed. The barrier of marriage seems
to be the one which commonly occurs to him, but in
itself that is but an accident, resulting perhaps
from lack of imagination, perhaps from other
causes. He wants to present to us an intercourse
of the spirit and by the very nature of the case
he must depict it in some physical form; in just
what form is not important.

But let us not rush upon the notion that we
must seize the mystical meaning, bear it forth and
feast upon it alone. The symbolism has its story
which is necessary to it. Why does the soul have
a body.'* We may not be sure, but we know that
since it has, we must admit it to considerations M.
Maeterlinck's play is a play even without regard
to any symbolism at all. " As it was presented
yesterday," wrote somebody when Mrs. Patrick
Campbell gave it in London, " at the Royalty
Theatre, you felt the poetry of idea, the delicacy
of suggestion, the rarity and remoteness of it all.
What does it all mean.^^ Anything beyond what
lies upon the surface.? Perhaps, but at a first
hearing, at any rate, you are content to enjoy the
b%auty, the romance of Maeterlinck's creation."

MAETERLINCK 165

We may enjoy the externals thoroughly, even
though the essential continually haunts us with a
vague sense of heightened significance.

M. Maeterlinck's following plays may be readily
appreciated after " Pelleas et Melisande " ; we have
the same externality and the same suggestion of
spiritual life and conversation. In " Alladine et
Palamides " we have the same contrast between
gloomy castle and bright world, the same conflict
of lovers with the rigidity of common life. The
story is not precisely the same as in " Pelleas et
Melisande," but there is quite as much love, jeal-
ousy, and death. These we need not wish away,
as Keats says, but we should take them for what
they are worth, and fix our desire upon the spiri-
tual content, the super-expressive element to which
we shall respond only by calming ourselves of
outward thrills and emotions. " Aglavaine et
Selysette " is not very different at bottom, though
the mise en scene is not quite the same.

In " La Mort de Tintagiles," however, we have
something rather different in form and in motive.
It is a very simple and affecting little play, al-
though less theoretically consistent with M. Mae-
terlinck's dramaturgy than others. The child in
the grip of the dark and powerful queen, the
devoted sisters, their watch and their failure,
Ygraine's desperation and revolt, — these are

166 MAETERLINCK

almost too typical, too symbolic. To present a
symbol is nothing new, even when done with con-
summate sensitiveness and mastery of feeling; it
is a language not unlike the metaphors of every
day. What M. Maeterlinck seemed to be feeling
for was the suggestion of much by means of little
or even nothing. And in spite of the beauty of
this little piece, I cannot feel in it the elusiveness
that I have thought it M. Maeterlinck's design to
convey. Of the other plays " Interieur " is not
unlike " L'Intrus " in its general character, and
** Soeur Beatrice " is rather after the fashion of
some other things. I will confess honestly that I
have quite failed, however, to get at it, except so
far as the obvious exoteric proceedings are con-
cerned. But I believe we need not pause on these
plays, for there are others more important.

" Ariane et Barbe Bleue " is a significant little
piece because it is a sort of commentary. There
are castles and caverns as in the other plays, but
at the moment that M. Maeterlinck diverges from
the nursery tale we see at a flash much. When
Ariane looks at the keys which Bluebeard has
given her, and at once selects the forbidden key,
with the calm " That is the only one of value,'*
one can see at once, not allegory, not symbolism,
but that M. Maeterlinck throughout is assured
that in prospecting for truth it is useless to go

MAETERLINCK 167

where people have gone before and found nothing.
He searches in those very places which are for-
bidden by convention, or authority, or fear of ridi-
cule, or hope of praise, just because the things
which were allowed to all have been explored by all,
to no great effect so far as his own interests were
concerned. That which is permitted is of no value ;
it will only distract one's attention. If one regards
the prohibitions of the world, one will go no fur-
ther than the world. So Ariane at once makes
for the forbidden door. Her nurse opens various
other doors that are not forbidden and finds heaps
of diamonds, pearls, rubies, and other trivial
things. But Ariane opens the forbidden door
and finds — all M. Maeterlinck's heroines. She
finds them in a dark cavern which she makes light
by letting in the sun. They are dazzled at first.
When they can see, they long to go to the woods,
the fields, the ocean. They look upon each other,
and when they see each other as they are they
think it very strange. Still, when they gather in
the hall of the jewels and Bluebeard is delivered to
them, they cannot make up their minds to break
their bonds. They care for him till he returns
to consciousness. Then Ariane says that she
must go away. Nor will she ever come back. One
after another: Melisande, Selysette, Ygraine, Bel-
langere, AUadine refuse to accompany her, and

168 MAETERLINCK

she goes forth alone, leaving them In the hall of
jewels.

Somehow one cannot take all that seriously, but
in spite of the humour that cannot be denied (in-
deed it should surely be appreciated) there is some-
thing well worth having. Ex^ oris infantium;
children have not the wisdom of us elder folks, of
course. But we do not deny the frequent value of
their clearsightedness. I confess that M. Maeter-
linck's long-haired ladies had appeared to me not
wholly in keeping with the Treasure of the Hum-
ble, Wisdom and Destiny, the Buried Temple.
When I read " Ariane et Barbe Bleue " I began
to see a glimmering of light on the dark river.

When you begin on " Monna Vanna " you are
all at sea again. Here is no symbolism, certainly,
whatever there be elsewhere, and no realism either.
" Monna Vanna '' is not conceived for the static
theatre, nor for the romantic theatre that we have
become accustomed to. It is a play of the Italian
Renaissance, and in externals might be by anybody.
If it were by anybody else, one could read it easily
enough ; but being by M. Maeterlinck, we feel that
there must be more than meets the eye.

The first accustomed figure in a world of ordi-
nary strangers is the old man Marco. He has the
air of calm wisdom with which we are familiar
from M. Maeterlinck's philosophical writings; he

MAETERLINCK 169

is representative of eternal justice; if not of com-
mon sense, yet of that sense wherein we "' see into
the hfe of things " and which greets us so often if
not in M. Maeterlinck's plays, at least in his phi-
losophy. We recognise it and respond to it. In
this play, however, his wisdom is not generally
recognised; it is indeed intensely irritating to
others on the stage. Marco brings to the captain
of beleaguered Pisa the offer of the Florentine be-
sieger ; let his wife, Monna Vanna, go to the tent
of the conqueror in mantle and sandals only, and
the town shall be spared. Guido is outraged;
Marco imperturbable. " Why do you consider if
you have the right to deliver a whole people to
death in order to delay for a few hours an evil
which is inevitable; for when the city is taken
Vanna will fall into the power of the conqueror."
The Maeterlinckian wisdom is not understood,
save by Vanna herself, who immediately accepts
the offer. Guido is indignant and outraged and
we certainly must sympathise with him, but how
much less wise he is than the other.

WTien Monna Vanna comes to the tent of Prin-
zivalle^she learns that they have met before; he
met her as a child and has loved her for twenty
years during all the rush and change of a captain
of condottieri. There is something noble in such
devotion and Vanna receives it at its true worth.

170 MAETERLINCK

It is something diflFerent from everyday sentiment
and feelings. They return together to Pisa.

When they get there it is not remarkable that
Guido does not appreciate this noble love as his
wife has done. Guido is of the world and cannot
understand that people will not do as seems most
natural to him. Marco alone appreciates ; for the
rest no effort can make a really fine piece of Quix-
otic idealism seem for a moment possible. Those
who want to live at a higher level must be satisfied
with very few companions.

j [ But I believe M. Maeterlinck succeeds in put-
ting us on his side. Real justice appears beautiful
in Marco ; real morality in Vanna ; real love in
IPrinzivalle. Such people will understand each
lother even if everybody else holds them worse than
{fools or knaves.

The best commentator on M. Maeterlinck, or
at least the keenest, is M. Maeterlinck himself.
" Joyzelle " is full of explanation. For the mo-
ment we may neglect its dramatic character and
take it for criticism. Merlin has gained power
because he has found Arielle, he has " realised his
interior force, the forgotten power that slumbers
in every soul." This is the main thing; it is not
the common, everyday intellect, will, emotion that
will give us an apprehension of a reality that
stands all tests; It is something that we are coil-

MAETERLINCK 171

scious of in silence as in " The Treasure of the
Humble," in ecstasy as in " Pelleas et Melisande,"
in wisdom and justice as in " Monna Vanna." To
those who do not know, Merlin is a bad magician,
just as Marco is a heartless philosopher; but he
has only " done a little sooner what they will do
later," for the age is on the dawn of a spiritual
enlightenment. The world waits for clear day;
a few young men now dream dreams, a few old men
see visions, but the time is approaching when the
clouds shall lift that now hang within a little of
the horizon. In the play Merlin waits for his son
who is to attain by love; who will achieve more
than his father just because he is to win by love
what the other has gained by knowledge. Joy-
zelle is love, unalloyed, incorruptible, perfect.
She denies everything that contradicts her intui-
tion; like Ariane she perceives that the very for-
bidding of anything renders it necessary ; like
Monna Vanna she scruples at no trial. Unlike
most people she cannot be influenced by some-
thing that has no relation to her.

This is the enforcement of M. Maeterlinck's^ L.j,
fundamental idea; the laws of life are not to be
deduced from the apparent circumstances of life;
they are to be appreciated by intuition; they are
therefore best known, not by words, by deeds, by ',
that which can be seen and heard, but in silence,

172 MAETERLINCK

not actively but passively. Such communication
with the absolute gives one a certain kind of dis-
position of which the motive power is love and the
directing power wisdom, but of these the latter is
the servant of the former.

Such is an abstract statement of the ideas which
are at the bottom of M. Maeterlinck's work.
They are fundamental conceptions, however, and
on them is based a dramatic art which does not
seem to have varied very much from the original
statement. In " The Double Garden " he gives
us a more recent view in commenting on the drama
of the present. The action is still unimportant.
He does not still insist on the principle that there
should be no external action, but the particular
acts are not of importance. Pelleas may love his
brother's wife, Monna Vanna may go to the tent
of a victorious mercenary, Joyzelle may emulate
Judith, — certainly all the events have the same
character, perhaps but a Gallic accident, — ^but
in themselves the acts are entirely indifferent and
might be something else. The dialogue is still
simple. It does not continue the effort at realism
which people used to think so funny, but it still
aims to suggest rather than to state. It carries
on the action, but its true purpose is to dissemi-
nate communication of a super-essential character.
} In fact the whole aim is to attune the modern mind

MAETERLINCK 173

to an appreciation of the mystical, to get it to be
direct and to disregard circumstance.

A good deal in M. Maeterlinck's dramas has
been held to be symbolic. I cannot attach much
importance to the opinion. A symbol is not an
effective mode of expression. Unless a symbol in
long process of time, or otherwise, has attached
itself to our emotional life it is rarely of much im-
portance. The hearth, the flag, the cross, these
doubtless are symbols, and of immense power, and
further they are symbols having what is practi-
cally accidental connection with the thing they
symbolise. Hearths are sadly uncommon nowa-
days, flags present either a fancy or a convention
of a forgotten heraldry, and the cross is an im-
mense power even when its historic character is
forgotten. These symbols have power over us,
it is true, but chiefly because their extraordinary
and universal acceptance has associated them in-
extricably with our moral nature. The symbols
of men of letters rarely have this power unless
there be some real likeness at bottom, as in the
conception of a progress from this world to the
world to come. Where there is no such reality
the symbol is fanciful and has little lasting power.
The symbols of Hawthorne, the scarlet letter,
Zenobia's flower, have meaning only by the moral
vitality which they express.

174 MAETERLINCK

A symbol, If it be nothing but a symbol, merely
serves to mystify, to obscure. Arthur Rimbaud's
idea that A symbolised blue (or whatever colour
it was) and the other vowels, other colours, would
obscure matters if any one paid any attention to
it, because, although people do attach conceptions
of colour to sounds or letters, they differ very
greatly about it, so that symbolism of that sort
is not expressive, but obscuring. M. Maeterlinck
has no desire to be obscure: in his essays he tries
to state very simply and directly his ideas on a
very inexpressible matter. I remember no sym-
bols properly so called in his philosophical writ-
ings, though there are figures for the moment here
and there.

The figures and circumstances in his plays, with
a few exceptions, are not symbolic; they are ex-
amples, types, concrete cases, which are things
very different from symbols. They have reality,
they have a real marvellousness, to use his quota-
tion from Reaumer, instead of a marvellousness
that is changeful and imaginary. M. Maeter-
linck himself says that he has long ceased to find
in this world any marvel more interesting or more
beautiful than truth, or at least than man's effort
to know It. And so in his book " Les Abeilles,"
although there is the constant idea in mind that
in the hive we have a form of life that may give

MAETERLINCK > 176

us some knowledge of human life, there is nowhere
any fancy as we may call it, but wherever an
analogy is perceived it is presented very simply
and with abundant explanation and limitation.
" Let us not hasten to draw from these facts con-
clusions as to the life of man." Yet there is
throughout that singularly interesting book the
constant feeling of an analogy that is rarely ex-
pressed. The bees act under the impulsion of a
power external to themselves, it would seem, to
which we cannot give a better name than the spirit
of the hive. They are aware of this spirit and
they obey it: but it does not appear that they
know it intellectually or obey it consciously. M.
Maeterlinck's representative figures are like the
bees, they are unconsciously under the domination
of the spirit of the race, of the de*stiny of human-
ity, of the wisdom of life. The feeling leads them
to strange acts, it is true, but it does lead them.
Maeterlinck presents them to us and that in a
form in which we may sympathise with them.
That is his work as a dramatist. It is not his
business to preach either by symbol or sermon.
He is content to present the essential things of
life as he recognises them. He presents them in
forms in which, as nearly as may be, those things
which cannot be spoken can be made evident.

OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY

Some years ago Mr. Courtnej; delivered three
lectures at the Royal Institution which he pub-
Kshed under the title;, " The Idea of Tragedy."
So far as offering any explanation of the power
of tragedy In this world, he was not very success-
ful. The essence of tragedy, thought Mr. Court-
ney, lay in the conflict presented. But every one
knows that conflict In Itself Is not tragic : as com-
monly thought of, conflict may be tragic and may
not. Mr. Courtney spoke of the Attic tragedy
as presenting the conflict of the human will against
fate, of Shakespearean tragedy as presenting the
conflict of the human will with the laws that guide
the universe. When he got to modern times, how-
ever, his courage failed him : " The Second Mrs.
Tanqueray " was his ideal, and he saw very clearly
that there was no conflict there to make tragedy.
So he abandoned his idea and took a new one : in-
spired by Ibsen, he added that in modern tragedy
the main idea is failure to achieve one's mission.

The first of these ideas was by no means new.
It will be found in many places in aesthetic litera-

176

OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 17T

ture. Let me quote a statement of It not so com-
mon as some others : it has in it some very interest-
ing criticism of poetry:

" Say what meant the woes
By Tantalus entailed upon his race,
And the dark sorrows of the line of Thebes?
Fictions in form, but in their substance truth.
Tremendous truths ! familiar to the men
Of long-past times, nor obsolete in ours.
Exchange the shepherd's frock of native grey
For robes with regal purple fringed ; convert
The crook into a sceptre ; give the pomp
Of circumstance, and here the tragic Muse
Shall find apt subjects for her highest art.
Amid the groves, under the shadowy hills,
The generations are prepared; the pangs,
The internal pangs are ready; the dread strife
Of poor humanity's afflicted will
Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny."

In that passage Wordsworth expresses his idea
in almost exactly the words of Mr. Courtney, and
says, too, that this conflict between will and fate^
the subject of Greek tragedy, is still a power ready
to the hand of the poet of the day.

The other notion of tragedy, too, may be found
in the poetry of our day, notably in that of

178 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY

Browning, whose tragedy, when he presents us
with tragedy, generally consists, not so much in
strife, as in failure to do that which was possible,
that which one's best nature demanded. It is of
this form of tragedy he writes in the " Lost
Leader," where Wordsworth served him as ex-
ample as he has served me with precept.

But all this seems to me a little superlBcial.
Granted that tragedy consists sometimes of a con-
flict, a strife, whether between the human will and
fate, or between humanity and natural law ; some-
times of a failure to fulfil one's mission, to be what
one might be, to " live one's own life," according
to the phrase of the day or the day before yester-
day,— it is still a question why these matters
should affect us as tragedy does affect us. That
is my interest: literature or art, tragedy or any
other element in it is vitally important to us, only
as it affects, touches, moves us. And any theory
of tragedy, to take any real part in our thinking
and feeling, must make clearer to us why we are
moved, or how, in order that we may appreciate,
in the tragedies that we see, the things that are
really strong and true.

It may first, however, be a matter of interest
to some unsophisticated souls who have no theory
on the subject, and have often enjoyed tragedies
keenly without any, to know why we should wish

OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 179

to discuss the idea of tragedy in the drama of our
day. Why the idea of tragedy rather than the
idea of farce or of comedy or any other idea?
Or even why talk of such abstractions at all?

Let me explain why nobody should be without a
theory of tragedy. I may add that I have already
presented the matter to the public, to the accept-
ance, unfortunately, of no one that I ever heard
of, and to the utter rejection of one competent
authority on the drama. If I do not endeavour
to controvert the opinions of this latter learned
critic, it is not because I do not respect them. It
is because the spectacle of two academic theorists
disputing on the matter of tragedy — two budge
doctors of the Stoic fur disputing over the fit of
a buskin — would be inharmoniously humorous.
So I must bid her farewell (ave atque vale!), my
fair theorist with her " tragic blame " and so
forth. I shall never convert her — perhaps no one
else — ^but I shall enjoy tragedy all the same in my
own way, more, I hope, than it is possible to do in
hers.

We may well enough discuss the idea of tragedy
in the drama of our day, or of any other, because
by the pretty general consent of mankind, or that
part of it that cares for letters, tragedy is re-
garded as the highest and noblest Uterary form.
A great tragedy stands higher in the estimation

180 OUR roEA OF TRAGEDY

of the world than a great lyric or a great novel.
Aristotle considered tragedy the crowning achieve-
ment of the human intellect, though the Greeks
in general gave the first place to Homer. The
English world considers Shakespeare the greatest
author of all times, though Keats thought that the
epic was the truly great form and Poe the lyric.
These are differences of opinion and the question
is not very important : some of the world's master-
pieces are tragedies and some are not. In the
drama, however, tragedy easily holds the most im-
portant place. We like to laugh at a farce, to be
thrilled at a melodrama, to be charmed at a
comedy, — and we may not like a tragedy as much
as these things. But generally people admit that
it is greater. It may be too great for us at some
given time, — there will be plenty of evenings when
we had rather go to some bright comedy or some
exciting melodrama, or even to the vaudeville or
the music hall, if it comes to that, as it often does,
— than to any tragedy ever written. But that is
just as we do not always want to read the very
best literature, do not always want to be hearing
classic music, do not always want to be looking
at the Sistine Madonna, say ; do not always want
to wear our best clothes and sit in the parlour.
We acknowledge pretty generally that tragedy is
the great thing, though we may not be always in

OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 181

the mood for it. Few persons of taste can experi-
ence profoundly the emotion of a great tragedy
and hold that any other dramatic form is equally
great.

This theoretic view we might present on the
basis of current facts. That is, practically all
the great plays of which we have been speaking are
tragedies. We may not feel quite sure just what
is conveyed by the term tragedy, but we can gen-
erally tell one when we see it, if only by the simple
fact that the chief figure dies at the end, or at
least comes to an end in the particular world in
which we know him, which is much the same thing.
There is nothing essentially noble in death, I sup-
pose, nor is death on the stage always tragic, but
we do have this particular ending in " Cyrano "
and " L'Aiglon," in " Die versunkene Glocke '*
and " Es lebe das Leben," in " The Second Mrs.
Tanqueray," in " Pelleas et Melisande," though
not in " Candida,'* presumably.

And if the greatest of our modern plays have
the same purpose as the greatest plays of the old
Athenian days, of the great Elizabethan time, of
the French classic period ; why, it is worth our while
to spend a time in studying out their essential
characteristic, if it be only that we may be sure
to gain from these plays the highest form of
pleasure, that we do not get too much interested

182 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY

in minor matters, but find out in them what is
best.

For it is well to remark that there is no especial
importance in the abstract definition of the term.
" tragedy " or of any other term in aesthetics.
That is in itself a matter of slight moment for us.
There is, it is true, intense pleasure in speculating
on aesthetic subjects for those who like it (as I do),
just as there is intense pleasure in speculating over
any other point in psychology, or any other
science. But that is something for the lover of
speculation, not for the lover of literature : it has,
as such, no more to do with the appreciation of
the drama than any other kind of speculation.
Many people have an intuitive delight at fine
things on the stage, which is far more intense than
the reasoned pleasure of a cut-and-dried critic.
It is not for the importance of the definition that
it is worth while to go over the subject.

No, it is for a more practical reason. It is
that we may have a notion of the true sources of
pleasure, or, rather, of the sources of the truest
pleasure. A dozen people will go to the same play
and enjoy a dozen different things. One had eyes
for the costumes, another for the stage-settings,
another was carried away by the sweet smile of the
actress, another got "a great moral lesson'' (I
suppose there must be such people, or the matter

OUR roEA OF TRAGEDY 183

would not figure in the advertisements), another
was delighted at the careful dramatic construe-
tion, another enjoyed the fine delivery of the poet^s
lines (that couldn't have been in America, unless
perhaps it was the Chorus in "Henry V."), an-
other was immensely impressed somehow in a way
he could not explain. If we are one of these and
talk to some of the others, and find that we have
really missed something worth while, — or, to put
it more simply, if we find, on reading a criticism
the next morning, that there was more than met
our eye, — why, then we may feel as though
we had not got from the play all that was there.
And if we go again we shall perhaps aim to get
the true thrill, and look out especially for it.
Our friend who said of " Cyrano de Bergerac "
that " The most popular play of the final decade
of the century presents no problem whatever, and
avoids any criticism of life," was one who looked
in " Cyrano " for problems and criticism of life,
because he thought that a great play ought to
have those things. A problem, in the sense in
which people say that Pinero deals with problems,
" Cyrano " has not, and a good thing, too. And
as for a criticism of life, it certainly does not have
that in potted form. Those things it does not
have ; what it does have is better worth while than
either. But the point is that such a critic does?

184 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY

not get from " Cyrano " even that which it has,
because he looks for something it had not, which,
to his mind, was the real thing.

Now with tragedy it is commonly supposed that
there is something especial about it which influ-
ences all men ; that human nature is such as to be
susceptible to this something, which appears in all
sorts of forms, always different, but always hav-
ing upon the souls of men the same moving effect.
Just what this something is, the critics have found
it hard to say. Just what is the moving effect
that it has, has been occasion of various explana-
tion. But it is the pretty general opinion that in
all tragedy there is a single something, and that
people are and have been affected by it in much
the same way. It is not necessary that this
should be the case. The Athenians were very dif-
ferent from us. It might be that there were
things about their tragedies that have no especial
effect upon us, and that we enjoy things to which
they paid small attention. With the Elizabethan
drama there is no doubt of the matter; Shake-
speare's audiences cared greatly for things which
are even distasteful to us, and we enjoy things
which they hardly noticed. But these things are
minor matters ; the real tragedy is the same to-day
that it was in Shakespeare's day, that it was in
the time of the Greeks. If, then, we see some

OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 185

great and common quality in all great tragedy,
if we see some great and common quality in human
nature now and two thousand years ago, and if
the common quality of great tragedy seems to
bear some relation to the quality of human nature,
far more if it seem to be a natural cause of it, —
why, then we may well believe that the success of
a great tragedy, the existence in it of a lasting
appeal to mankind, comes not from accident nor
from art, but from the presence of the truly
tragic quality which moved the Athenians in the
days when ^Eschylus presented " Prometheus
Bound," which was felt when " Hamlet " was jnst
put on the stage, just as it is felt to-day in not
a few pieces which for minor reasons we cannot
compare with those masterpieces of the human
mind.

To talk over this question is to attune ourselves
to it. It is not a matter of definition which one
may read in a book and learn by heart. It is a
matter of looking into one thing or another and
trying to feel keenly what is there. It is doubt-
less the case that some people feel artistic beauty
keenly with no sense of why or wherefore, and it
is probably the case also that other people feel
artistic beauty, just as keenly but in a somewhat
different way, with more consciousness of causes
and reasons. Both kinds of enjoyment are good

186 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY

if both be intense and genuine. A person who
enjoys keenly, with no idea of why, has usually
more artistic appreciation than the person who
thinks much or reasons. But both may enjoy
more keenly by training, or, in this case, by talk-
ing or thinking over the matters in question and
discussing the characteristics that are of interest.

The first and simplest idea of tragedy is of a
play with an unhappy ending. That is not very
abstruse, but it is characteristic of all tragedies —
Greek, Elizabethan, French, modern — what more
would you have?

Why, this much more, a knowledge of why an
unhappy ending should be pleasing to us, why we
should think it delightful to see an unhappy end-
ing,— in fact, whether every unhappy ending is
pleasing to us, — ^why any one should call the writ-
ing of a play with an unhappy ending the top
achievement of the human intellect? In other
words, Is not this unhappy ending something
necessary to tragedy, perhaps, but not the essen-
tial characteristic? In logic a quality always to
be found, and yet not essential, is called an insep-
arable accident. For instance, it is in England
an inseparable accident with a clergyman that he
wears a white tie, and yet this costume has no es-
sential connection with his holy calling. Perhaps
the true and essential tragic quality necessitates

OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 187

an unhappy ending as far as the chief character
is concerned, and yet that unhappy ending is not
itself the essentially tragic thing. In fact this
is almost necessarily the case, for in a tragedy
we feel the tragic quality long before the end, and
therefore it cannot be the end only that has the
tragic quality.

And, even if it could rationally be the case, the
unhappiness of the end would hardly be a sufficient
explanation, for we should still want to know why
the end seemed to us unhappy. A tragic ending
is often the death of the hero. But death is not
necessarily unhappy — in a large way, that is. To
those immediately concerned it is always a cause
of unhappiness, it is true. But death is a neces-
sity, and we would not, even if we could, avoid it ;
even M. Metchnikoff agrees to that. It is the
natural, the appropriate end of our life here. It
is often not tragic at all, but triumphant, glo-
rious. Why is such and such a death unhappy.?
The word merely begs the question and puts us on
a new inquiry no easier than the old.

So those who like to speculate on such matters
have thought of other reasons, and a good many
other definitions and descriptions of the idea of
tragedy have been put forward. I shall not deal
with them for many reasons, one of which is that
it would take a whole book instead of the tail-end

188 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY

of one, and another, that it is more amusing to
hear a man talk of what he thinks himself, than of
what other people think.

It is the general opinion — and a very natural
one — that, in trying to determine the nature of
the tragic quality, we must find something which
does not belong to the drama alone. We use the
word " tragic " far too widely to confine ourselves
to anything to be found only in dramatic form.
If it were for no other reason than that the drama
represents life, we might say that whatever is
effective in a large way in the drama will be an
element effective in life as well. But then, also,
we use the word, half figuratively perhaps, but
still broadly. In all forms of literature we have
what we may call tragedy, and in life as well.
Indeed, if we were going into a general theoretical
consideration, we ought to go far beyond the
narrow limits of the drama; all literature, all art
we ought to examine, history, life we ought to con-
sider to find the essential of the tragic quality.

Looking on the matter, without confining our-
selves necessarily to literature, tragedy seems to
depend largely upon a sense on our part of in-
soluble mystery or strangeness, in some action or
bit of life that we are viewing. Such a sense
everybody must have very often had in viewing
life, art, literature. Let us consider a case or

OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 189

two ; take the example of Heinrich the Bell-caster,
he whose love of art led him away from his home
to a mountain-top; led him to desert his wife for
a mountain-spirit; led him finally to that point
where his wife sought refuge beneath the waters
of the mountain tarn, while his mountain-spirit
vanished away to the home of the Nickelmann.
Here would be a tragedy entirely aside from Hein-
rich's dying. It would be a tragedy surely, even
if he were left alive, because we can see how life
would continue with him. And why a tragedy?
Can we analyse it.? For one thing, we may note
that we have here a pretty general motive, the
contest between the life of art and the everyday
life of home, the contest that finds expression now-
adays in all sorts of forms, notably in d'Annun-
zio's " Giaconda " and Sudermann's " Heimat,"
or in the figure of Marchbanks in " Candida."
The thing is this: here is Art, the pursuit of the
Beautiful, the care-charmer, the teacher, the great
amuser of mankind, the recuperator of the weary
by ever-changing delight — art is all that, is it
not? a very necessary factor in life, I am sure.
And yet how often does this very necessary factor
jar and collide with and crush that other very
necessary factor, namely, the simple, plain, good
life of the home, of morality, of every day. And
vice versa. Is there not an instinctive contrast

190 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY

between the idea of the artist and the idea of the
father, the citizen, the respectable everyday man?
There certainly is, although we may get over it by
thinking we ought to, and that there should be
any such contrast, that there should be a conflict,
as it were, between these two important elements
in life, that they should seem inharmonious, is
surely, to me at least, a very strange thing, a
matter not yet solved and made plain to us. Hence
pictures of this strife, if they be broad and gen-
eral, give us the tragic element. If they be well
done they impress us powerfully, because they
thrust us into a region where we are afraid, where
we cannot reckon upon results, where we cannot
answer the pressing questions which come, but
have simply to acknowledge that we do not know.
Not that everything that we do not understand
is tragic. There are many things that we do not
understand at all, although we always behave as
though we did, namely, those things that are a
great joy to us. The nature of love, for instance,
is very imperfectly understood by us, yet happy
love is not tragic, because, though we do not pene-
trate to its depths, it seems all right and precisely
what it should be. It does not seem to us a mys-
tery, it seems very natural and necessary, and, in-
deed, when we get used to it, an everyday affair.
The normal course of love is like the normal course

OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 191

of many other things : the question of comprehen-
sion, of understanding, simply never comes up in
regard to them, we do not try to understand them,
we see that they work to the advantage of man-
kind, that they are in harmony with life as we look
at it, that we could not make them better in any
detail, and so, whether we grasp them intellectu-
ally or not, we do not trouble ourselves about
them. And yet sometimes even happy love, since
we have spoken of it, has its tragic element. I
spoke a few pages back of Mr. Sothern's presenta-
tion of " Romeo and Juliet." One of the most
beautiful moments in the play, and yet the most
pitiful and the most tragic, was that scene at the
Capulet feast, where these two who loved at iSrst
sight first are conscious that they love. It is not
that we know what is about to happen to them
that gives us a thrill. No, it is simply the strange
sight of these two, their souls in their eyes, mov-
ing mechanically in the world of masquers, Juliet
in the dance, Romeo by the wall, with life to them
a totally different thing from what it was a mo-
ment before. Certainly a very strange concep-
tion, and well calculated to stagger any one with-
out great indifference or great confidence in the
order of Nature and in her always proceeding in
the very best way. Still, as a rule, such situations
are not conceived of as tragic.

192 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY

Another great mass of circumstances Is not
tragic, even though It presents us with most note-
worthy Inconsistencies or Incongruities. This is
where the circumstances are trivial or superficial.
Matters of this sort are not tragic, but comic.
The foundation of the Ludicrous Is often said to
be the Incongruous, and the Incongruous Is that
which for the moment is inconsistent. And the
inconsistent is something that we cannot for the
moment harmonise in our thoughts or render com-
prehensible. The ludicrous often, indeed always,
depends upon the point of view. Thus a dignified
gentleman walking on the street steps on the ice
or upon a piece of orange-peel and falls down. It
Is very funny to some people, but the man himself
rarely perceives the humour of it. It Is Incon-
gruous, the contrast between his dignity and his
lack of dignity. For the moment the mind of the
spectator refuses to correlate the ideas. But in
a minute the situation becomes perfectly natural;
pitiable, but not tragic. Experience steps In and
tells us that there is nothing incongrous or incon-
sistent. And the matter ceases to be ludicrous.
If you come home and tell some one that you saw
a dignified man fall down upon the ice, you can-
not, probably, make it seem funny to anybody else
because, although It is incongruous to them as it
was to you, so far as the minor aspects of the

OUR roEA OF TRAGEDY 193

matter are concerned, the mind Is not taken by
surprise, and regards the matter as one of the
necessary and normal results of winter.

Other cases, however, present more difficulty In
discrimination. There are not a few cases where
the same thing may seem tragic or humorous.
The classic example, as we may say, Is that of
Mr. Shandy and My Uncle Toby. Here were two
brothers who loved each other devotedly, and yet
were totally unable to understand each other. As
Sterne handles the situation, fixing attention on
minor points, veiling any deeper feelings that
might have been aroused, it Is very purely hu-
morous. But after all. It Is not a humorous sit-
uation If dealt with seriously. Two beings bound
together by close ties, loving each other but never
able to understand each other, something like that
Is the situation on which Ibsen built " The Doll's
House." The same thing may often be comic and
tragic to different people. The nose of Cyrano
de Bergerac was intensely humorous to many
about him: It was so incongruous that it was
enough to make anybody laugh who could keep
out of the way of the owner. But to Cyrano him-
self It was far from humorous, and It shows the
power of the dramatist that he makes us forget
the ridiculous possibilities, so that the figure of
Cyrano Is really a noble one.

194 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY

Incongruity is merely inconsistency, merely
that we cannot comprehend two things in one
thought. Incomprehensibleness is at the bottom
of tragedy. We must have something great,
something of importance, and then, if the incon-
gruity, the inconsistency, be brought out strongly
and poignantly, the thing is done.

One reason for disagreement as to tragic qual-
ity is that it often happens that a thing is im-
portant to one set of people, but not to another.
Then there will be difference of opinion. For ex-
ample, the so-called problem-plays of Mr. Pinero.
These plays are not great tragedies because they
(and their problems) do not make a very wide
appeal. For example, " Iris " : the motive of
" Iris " is that of the weak woman who wants to be
good but wants more to have an easy, delightful,
luxurious, lazy time. That motive may be capable
of tragic force. Such women may have much
charm and beauty of character, so that in easy
circumstances they add to the true joy of the
world. Iris was such a one. She was even more:
she was — in ways that did not trouble her — good
and generous. Now, why should such good char-
acteristics all be overbalanced by this one evil.'*
Further, Iris was practically betrayed by her own
generosity. Why should one's doing a good thing
lead one inexorably to the doing such wrong

OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 196

things that one's hfe Is wrecked and other people's
too? There seems to be, then, the possibility of
tragedy there, because that is one of the mysteries
of the human heart and of divine law. But even
were the motive more strongly worked out, the
tragedy would not be a great one because, in the
form In which It comes to us. It Is not of wide
application. I suppose I do not know a single
Iris myself, and I question whether the average
man does. I may be able to Imagine them readily,
I may be able to judge that there are not a few
of them In certain spheres of life. But the ques-
tion does not come near enough home to me, or
to most people, for us to call It really tragic. So
of Mrs. Tanqueray, Mrs. Ebbsmlth, and the rest
of Mr. PInero's problematic ladles. They are Im-
mensely Interesting to themselves and their friends,
no doubt, but only by great art could they be
made so vivid to the world at large as to become
great figures. Alexandre Dumas achieved the
difficult feat when he created Marguerite Gau-
tler, La Dame aux Camelias, commonly called by
us Camille. When I saw the play I was a boy
in college; It Is a season when such motives seem
more real than in after years. I remember per-
fectly well standing up In the back of the theatre
with the tears rolling down my cheeks. In fact
I remember myself much better than I remember

196 OUR roEA OF TRAGEDY

Marguerite Gautler, though I occasionally stimu-
late my memory by reading the play over. The
fact is that she does not have a universal appeal.

The more important the case, the wider the
appeal, the more certain of success, — other things
being equal, — is the tragedy. It is in this way
that I explain the success of M. Rostand. The
motive of all his plays is the same. It is not very
clearly presented. It is usually conceived in a
spirit that impresses the audience as pessimistic,
but it is always there and always the same and
always the strongest motive in the world. It is
that of the failure of the idealist to attain the
height of his aspiration.

In the " Princesse Lointaine " the imaginative
Rudel loves the ideal princess of Tripoli. He dies
before attaining his ideal, but also before he knows
what his ideal was worth, save as an ideal. In
" Cyrano de Bergerac " we have a man who has,
a,nd who knows that he has, — and we know it too,
— tremendous powers, but who is never able to
realise them, who is never able to appear to the
world as he knows he is. There is that fatal im-
pediment. Purely typical that is, but every one
has something of the sort, for it is inherent in
human nature that the flesh should hold back the
spirit. In his case the spirit of the man is so
fine, he is so brilliant, so vigorous, so courageous,

OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 197

that he carries it all off with a vitality that makes
us almost forget the tragedy. But it is there all
the same. In " L'Aiglon " we have the idealist
once more, the man who has the greatest ideal of
his time, the finest, noblest, most splendid possi-
bility, at least, waiting for him, calling insistently,
beckoning, but he cannot ever reach it, chiefly be-
cause he cannot even understand what it is. To
the Due de Reichstadt Napoleon was a man of
victories and processions and uniforms. He real-
ises as the play goes on that he cannot even in
thought rise to the ideal before him, much less
realise it in fact. He is noble because he even
then clings to his ideal because It is an ideal. A
tragic figure he is on the field of Wagram, re-
lapsing Into the pathetic when In the last act he
becomes, as one might say, more of a child than
ever. And this constant defeat of the idealist
in this world I take to be a matter not thoroughly
understood by us. It is true that the poets offer
their explanations, Tennyson with his

" O me ! for why is all around us here
As if some lesser god had made the world,
But had not force to shape it as he would,
Till the High God behold it from beyond,
And enter it and make it beautiful ! "

and Browning with his constant optimism:

198 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY

" Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp.
Or what's a heaven for? "

But I cannot say that the explanations make it
very clear to me. Still it is the incomprehensible
nature of the thing that makes it striking. It
masters us ; if we understood it, we should master
it. If we understood it thoroughly, and saw that
it was just as we should imagine it, or as we
might ourselves have arranged it, or even as we
acknowledge just, then we should not think it any-
thing very much out of the common run. It
would make us cynical, perhaps, or hopeless, but
it would not be the medicina mentis that trag-
edy is.

Such — at any rate let me assume it, for the
time, in spite of conflicts, missions, tragic blames,
and anything else — such is tragedy always, a pur-
suing of some of the strange and unexplainable
courses of life. The finer and nobler the actors,
the greater and more general the evil that they
do not escape, the greater the tragedy. We see
it in the Greek drama, and we see it in the Eliza-
bethan. In the " Prometheus " we have the friend
of man, and therefore one who must endure a life
of torture, as so many friends of man have endured
since his day. In " Hamlet " we have the man in
whom the godlike reason was stronger than in any

OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 199

other man of his time, and who therefore fell a vic-
tim to an unscrupulous politician. And the same
thing is in modern plays, as we have seen, whether
presented in the beautiful and glittering forms of
romance or in the more immediate forms of every-
day life.

There can be little doubt that the element is
there, — may be found, I believe, in every great
tragedy in the drama, literature, in life. But
even if so the real question is : Is it this that thrills
and holds us, when we read the drama or see the
play-f* Is it this that impresses us with what we
call the Tragic ?

To give a sort of answer to this question I must
be a little pedantic. We all know the position of
Aristotle in the intellectual world, how he domi-
nated the thought of man for centuries and is to-
day as wise as ever, though not so dictatorial. He
thought about almost everything in his day and he
did not disdain the drama. He viewed the Athe-
nian drama of his time just as he viewed the
science, the oratory, the politics, the constitutional
principles, and everything else. He analysed its
power and stated it in words that have given the
theorists great opportunities.

" Tragedy," he says, " is an imitation of an
action that is serious, complete, and of a certain
magnitude; in language embellished with every

200 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY

kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being
found in separate parts of the play; in the form
of action not of narrative, through pity and awe
effecting the proper Katharsis of these emotions."

This word Katharsis, it seems generally agreed,
was a medical term, meaning much the same thing
as our word purgative. Tragedy is a purge to the
moral nature, it would appear, is the idea of Aris-
totle. It is an influence upon our moral nature,
a purifying, strengthening, reviving influence. It
does away with certain evils that annoy our daily
life. Its very bitterness — like the purge in " Pil-
grim's Progress '' — has this effect upon us, and
we listen to a tragedy with the same acrid sense of
tonic improvement that we feel when we are get-
ting over a cold, say, or an illness. That seems
to be Aristotle's view : I take it to be pretty sound.
It shows that two thousands years ago he noticed
what we may notice to-day.

Certain things in human life have this effect
upon us, though they commonly work in rather
a drawn-out way, and in art, in so far as art
represents life. In tragedy we appreciate Man
as Pope thought of him, that much-neglected poet
who said so many things so much better than any
one else could ever say them. Pope saw the fact,
though he had not the artistic feeling to put it in
any but an intellectual way:

OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY 201

** Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great;
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side^.
With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,
He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a god or beast.
In doubt his mind or body to prefer,
Bom but to die, and reasoning but to err ;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such.
Whether he thinks too little or too much;
Chaos of thought and passion all confused.
Still by himself abused and disabused ;
Created half to rise and half to fall,
Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all.
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled,
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! "

The glory to the eye of faith, but the jest to»
the comedian and the riddle to those in whom the
spirit is tuned to the note of tragedy.

Or in other words, when we have put before us
one of those poignant scenes, or situations, or mo-
ments, or figures of human life, where good and
evil, strength and weakness are so inextricably
mixed, where all that might, that should turn out
so well, does turn out so ill, then we cannot com-
prehend intellectually, do not try to, we can sim-
ply receive the impression emotionally or spiritu-

202 OUR IDEA OF TRAGEDY

ally, we cannot but be seized by a mixture of pity
and awe, as Aristotle says. And that feeling is
our feeling for the Tragic.

It leaves us calmed and quieted. Things seem
a little different. Everyday matters at which we
were so hot, for the moment are small and petty.
We feel in a confused way that life is something
fine, big, and noble, and that we ourselves are not
the only people of importance. It does not last,
of course; we shall again be angered, ridiculous,
blunderers, but for the' time we are satisfied. We
are willing to continue our lives in their silly indi-
viduality, feeling that we may confidently trust
in a power whose detailed purposes have not been
explained to us.

Such in its result is the general effect of the
greatest art. It is of great art that that figure
of the beautiful youth that Emerson mentions is
typical. Phosphorus, whose aspect is such that all
persons who look upon it become silent.

APPENDIX,

PERFORMANCE OR PUBLICATION

In the following lists are the dates of the first
performance or publication of the plays of our
dramatists. They do not pretend to do more than
to show the place of each play in the author's
career, and to give a general idea of his activity
and of public interest in his work. Many matters
of curious interest are therefore omitted. This
is especially the case with Bernard Shaw and
M. Maeterhnck, whose plays have been performed
at all sorts of times and places, but not, as a rule,
immediately on writing. Performances in coun-
tries or languages other than the author's have
been noted, but without idea of completeness, to
give an idea of the way the author has come before
the public. The facts come wherever possible
from the published texts of the authors, but in
other cases from periodicals, newspapers, dramatic
fists, etc.

EDMOND ROSTAND

(Unless especially mentioned, the place of produce
tion was Paris)

1894. May 21. Theatre Fran9ais. Les Ro-
manesques : Comedie en trois actes en vers.
Given at the Empire Theatre, New York,
February 24, 1901, by the American
Academy of Dramatic Arts, under the
name of " The Fantastics." It has also
been given of late in German at the Irving
Place Theatre.

1895, April 5. Theatre de la Renaissance. La
Princesse Lointaine: Piece en quatre
actes en vers. The part of Melissande
was created by Mme. Sarah Bernhardt.

189T. April 14. Theatre de la Renaissance.
La Samaritaine : Evangile en trois ta-
bleaux. The part of Photine by Mme.
Bernhardt. The piece is said to have been
very successful, and, I understand, has
several times been revived during Holy
Week.

1897. December 28. Theatre de la Porte Saint-
Martin. Cyrano de Bergerac: Comedie
Heroique en cinq actes en vers. The most
205

^06 APPENDIX

brilliant theatrical success of the dec-
ade* In the United States it was given
by Mr. Richard Mansfield at the Garden
Theatre, New York, October 3, 1898. In
London, at Wyndham's Theatre, with Mr.
Wyndham as Cyrano, April 19, 1900, it
did not seem to hit the public taste. It
has been given, In a translation by Ludwig
Fulda, In many cities of Germany and
Austria, and In New York also. Given in
French at the Garden Theatre, New York,
December 10, 1900, by Mme. Bernhardt
and M. Coquelln.
1900. March 15. Theatre Sarah Bernhardt.
L'Aiglon: Drame en six actes en vers.
First given In the United States at the
Academy of Music, Baltimore, October 15,
1900. At Her Majesty's Theatre, Lon-
don, June 1, 1901. In French at the
Garden Theatre, New York, November 26,
1900, by Mme. Bernhardt and M. Coquelln.

GERHARDT HAUPTMANN

(Unless especially mentioned, the place of produc^
tion was Berlin)

1889. October 20. Lessing-Theater, under the
auspices of the society Die freie Biihne.
VoR SoNNENAUFGANG : Soziales Drama.
The production of this play was an im-
mensely exciting event, being regarded as
a battle between the new school and the
old. Like most of the plays following, it
has been given at the Irving Place Theatre,
New York.

1890. June 1. Lessing-Theater. Das Friedens-
fest: Eine Famihenkatastrophe. This
play had already appeared in the news-
paper Die freie Biihne,

1891. January 11. Deutsches Theater. Ein-
SAME Menschen : Drama. This had been
presented shortly before by the Freie
Biihne. It has been given in German in
New York, by Mr. Conried, of course, and
in English as " Lonely Lives " at the Em-
pire Theatre December 11, 190^, by the
American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

207

208 APPENDIX

1892. January 16. Deutsches Theater. Col-
lege Crampton : Komodie in f iinf akten.

1893. February 26. Die freie Biihne. Die
Weber: Schauspiel aus den vierziger
Jahren. The play was to have been given
at the Deutsches Theater, but was forbid-
den, and so not presented there till Septem-
ber 25, 1894. It has been given in Paris
as " Les Tisserands " at M. Antoine's
Theatre Libre.

1893. September 21. Deutsches Theater. Dee
BiBERPELZ : Eine Diebskomodie.

1893. November 14. Konigliches Schauspiel-
haus. Hanneles Himmelfahrt : Traum-
dichtung in zwei Theilen. There were diffi-
culties in regard to the presentation of this
play also. It appeared the next year at
the Theatre Libre, Paris, and also at the
Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York.

1896. January 4. Deutsches Theater. Floriak
Geyer. As first presented this play was a
failure, to the great chagrin of the author,
who had put his best work into it. He
revised it subsequently, and it was given
at the Lessing-Theater, October 22, 1904,
but I have not been able to get a satisfac-
tory account of the nature of the revision
or of its success.

1896. December 2. Deutsches Theater. Die

VERsuNKENE Glocke. This play has been

i^\Vr^- Hauptmann's great public success; it at

APPENDIX 209

once stirred up criticism and controversy
in Grermany, and became more widely
known than anything he had yet done. It
was given to crowded houses by Frau
Agnes Sorma at the Irving Place Theatre,
New York, April 29, 1897, and afterward.
It did not appear in English, however,
until December 21, 1899, at the HolKs
Street Theatre, Boston, where it was pre-
sented by Mr. Sothern.

1898. November 5. Deutsches Theater. Fuhr-
MANK Henschel: Schauspiel in fiinf
Akten.

1900. February 3. Deutsches Theater. Schluck
UND Jau : Spiel zu Scherz und Schimpf .

1900. December 21. Deutsches Theater. Michael
Kramer.

1901. November 27. Deutsches Theater. Der
ROTE Hahn : Tragikomodie in vier Akten.

1902. November 29. Hof Burgtheater, Wien.
Der arme Heinrich : Eine deutsche Sage.

1903. October 31. Deutsches Theater. Rose
Bernd : Schauspiel in fiinf Auf ziigen.

1906. March 11. Lessing-Theater. Elga.

HERMANN SUDERMANN

(Unless especially mentioned, the place of produc-
tion was Berlin)

1889. November £T. Lessing-Theater. Die
Ehre: Schauspiel in vier Akten. Often
given in German. In English ( " Honour '^ )
at the Criterion Theatre, New York, Jan-
V uary 26, 1905, by the American Academy
of Dramatic Art.

1891. November 5. Lessing-Theater. Sodom's
Ende: Drama in fiinf Akten. This play
also has been widely given in German. The
first performance that I have noted in
EngHsh is " The Man and His Picture,''
Great Queen Street, London, March 8,
1903.

1893. January 7. Lessing-Theater. Heimat:
Schauspiel in vier Akten. This is the most
successful play that has been written of
late. It holds the stage better than any-
thing even of Rostand or Hauptmann.
The character of Magda has attracted
the greatest actresses of the day — Mme.
Bernhardt, Signora Duse, Mrs. Patrick
Campbell, Mrs. Fiske, Mme. Mojeska, as
well as the chief German actresses. It has
210

APPENDIX 211

been given almost everywhere, often under
the name of " Magda."

1894. October 6. Lessing-Theater. Die Schmet-
TERLINGSSCHLACHT I Komodie in vier Akten.

1895. November 11. Hof Burgtheater, Wien.
Das Gluck im Winkel : Schauspiel in drei
Akten.

^«r^^ ^ . 1 ^ ( Lessinff-Theater. Berlin ; )

1896. October 3. { ^^^ B^^gtheater, Wien. }

MoRiTURi: Drei Einakter; Teja; Fritz-
chen; Das Ewig Mannliche.

1898. January 15. Deutsches Theater. Jo-
hannes: Tragodie in fiinf Akten und
einem Vorspiel.

1899. January 21. Deutsches Theater. Die.
DREI Reiherfedern : Ein dramatisches
Gedicht in fiinf Akten.
October 5. Deutsches Theater. Johannes-
FEUER. Given in English as " Fires of St.
John,'' by Miss Nance O'Neil, at the Co-
lumbia Theatre, Boston, January, 1904.

1902. February 10. Deutsches Theater. Es
LEBE DAS Leben: Drama in fiinf Akten.
Given by Mrs. Campbell at the Garden
Theatre, New York, October 23, 1902. At
the New Theatre, London, June 24, 1903.

1903. October 3. Lessing-Theater. Der
V Sturmgeselle Sokrates: Komodie in

vier Akten.
1905. October 7. Lessing-Theater. Stein unter.
Steinen : Schauspiel in vier Akten.

ARTHUR WING PINERO

(Unless especially mentioned^ the place of produc-
tion was London)

1877. October 6. Globe Theatre. Two Hun-
dred A Year : A Comedietta in One Act.

1879. September ^0. Lyceum Theatre. Daisy's
Escape.

1880. June 5. Folly Theatre. Hester's Mys-
tery : A Comedietta in One Act.

1880. September 18. Lyceum Theatre, By-
gones : A Comedy in One Act.

1880. November 5. Theatre Royal, Manchester.
The Money Spinner: A Drama in Two
Acts. This was the first play of Mr.
Pinero's to attract much attention. The
production at Manchester was praised,
and the play was brought to London, where
it was given, January 8, 1881, by Mr. and
Mrs. Kendal, Mr. John Hare, and others.
It was considered worthy of note at the
time by an accomplished critic that " Mr
Pinero invents his own plots and writes his
own dialogue," a remark very signilScant
as to the English stage in 1880, a year
212

APPENDIX 21S

in which "Forbidden Fruit" and "The
Guv'nor " were the popular successes.
1881. July 27. Folly Theatre. Imprudence.
Given at the Boston Museum, August 21,
1882.

1881. Dec. 29. St. James Theatre. The Sotire.
Given at Daly's, New York, Oct. 10, 1882.

1882. March 24. Court Theatre. The Rector :
A Play in Four Acts. Given at the Boston
Museum, December 31, 1883.

1882. October 31. Toole's Theatre. Boys and
Girls. Mr. Pinero was still on the stage
and took a part in this play.

1883. July 30. Prince of Wales' Theatre, Liver-
pool. The Rocket: A Comedy in Three
Acts. Given December 10, 1883, at the
Gaiety Theatre, London.

1883. November 24. Haymarket Theatre. Lords
AND Commons : A Comedy in Four Acts.

1884. January 12. Globe Theatre. Low
Water : A Comedy in Three Acts.

1884. Written but not presented till 1888 (p.
214). The Weaker Sex. It was to have
been given at the Court Theatre, but was
supplanted by the following piece.

1885. March 21. Court Theatre. The Magis-
trate: A Farce in Three Acts. This is
a capital piece, though how good one can
hardly appreciate without comparing it
with some adaptations from the French of
the same time. It was remarkably suc-
cessful (ran for more than a year), so

214 APPENDIX

that it determined the general line of the
Court Theatre for some time. It was
given at Daly's Theatre, New York, and
has since been presented all over Europe
and the English colonies.
.1886. March 27. Court Theatre. The School-
mistress : A Farce in Three Acts.

1886. October 2S. Saint James' Theatre. The
Hobby Horse : A Comedy in Four Acts.

1887. January 27. Court Theatre. Dandy
Dick: A Farce in Three Acts. Given at
Daly's Theatre, New York, October 5, of

J the same year.

N/a888. March 21. Terry's Theatre. Sweet
Lavender. With the exception of " The
Magistrate," this is the most popular of
Mr. Pinero's earlier plays. Indeed, Mr.
Winter holds it to be " a thousand times
better than all his noxious analyses of
social sores." It was given at Daly's
Theatre, November 12, 1888, and has been
seen of late in New York given by Mr.
Terry, for whom it was originally written.

1888. September 28. Theatre Royal, Man-
chester. The Weaker Sex : A Comedy in
Three Acts. Written 1884. Given at
the Court Theatre, March 19, 1889, and
by the Kendalls during an American
tour.

j/l889. April M. Garrick Theatre. The Prof-
^ X.IGATE: A Drama in Four Acts. This

APPENDIX 215

play, which was the first strong piece of
work in the kind wherein Mr. Pinero is
now most distinguished, did not excite
especial attention. It was not produced
in this country until 1894, when people
had become interested in the author
through " The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.'*

1890. April 2S. Court Theatre. The Cabinet
Minister: A Farce in Four Acts.

1891. March 7. Garrick Theatre. Lady Boun-
tiful: A Play in Four Acts. Not en-
tirely successful, but given in the fall
(November 16) simultaneously at the
Lyceum Theatre, New York, and the Bos-
ton Museum.

1891. October 24. Terry's Theatre. The
Times : A Comedy in Four Acts. Of this
play Mr. Pinero himself writes that " It
lays bare no horrid social wound, it
wrangles over no vital problem of inex-
tricable perplexity."

1893. March 7. Court Theatre. The Am-
azons: A Farcical Romance in Three
Acts. Given at the Lyceum, New York,
the next year.

1893. May 27. Saint James' Theatre. The
Second Mrs. Tanqueray: A Play in
Four Acts. Given by the Kendals at the
Star Theatre, New York, October 9, 1893.
With this play Mr. Pinero begins to be
considered seriously ; it has been much dis-

216 APPENDIX

cussed, and good critics have held It to be
a great tragedy; a view which, I hope,
(pp. 93, 94, 176, 195) Is quite erroneous.
Mrs. Patrick Campbell created the part
of Mrs. Tanqueray, and the part did
something of the sort In return. There
have been French and Italian versions
given In many places, but I do not hear of
it In Germany.

1896. March 13. Garrick Theatre. The No-
torious Mrs. Ebbsmith. A very good
play. Done by Mr. John Hare, at Ab-
bey's Theatre, New York, December S3,
1895. Given September 22, 1899, at the
Lesslng-Theater, Berlin, under the name
" Die Genossin."

1895. October 16. Comedy Theatre. The
Benefit of the Doubt. Given at the
Lyceum, New York, January 6, 1896.

1897. March 29. St. James' Theatre. The
Princess and the Butterfly; or, The
Fantastics: A Comedy In Five Acts.
Given at the Lyceum, New York, Novem-
ber 23, 1897.

1898. January 30. Court Theatre. Trelawney
OF THE Wells: A Comedietta In Four
Acts. Given at the Lyceum, New York,
November 22, 1898.

1899. April 8. Globe Theatre. The Gay Lord
QuEx: A Comedy In Four Acts. Given
in New York by Mr. Hare a year or so

APPENDIX 217

later. Also at the Lessing-Theater, Ber-
lin, January 13, 1900, where it was pro-
nounced by the only critic I have noted,
** reichlich langweilig und . . • ein be-
dauerliches Zeichen flir den Tiefstand des
englischen Geschmackes." The remark is in
itself an interesting sign of German taste.
1901. September 21. Garrick Theatre. Iris:
A Drama in Five Acts. Given at the
Criterion Theatre, New York, September
23, 1902.

1903. October 8. Duke of York's Theatre.
Letty: a Drama in Four Acts and an
Epilogue. Given at the Hudson Theatre^
New York, September 12, 1904.

1904. October 9. Wyndham's Theatre. A Wife
WITHOUT A Smile: A Comedy in Dis-
guise. Given at the Criterion Theatre^
New York, December 19, 1904.

Some translations or adaptations have
been omitted.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

(Unless especially mentioned, the place of produc-
tion was London)

1892. Independent Theatre. Widowers' Houses.

^r^Qa j Written for the Independent ) ^
1 Theatre, but not performed, j
Philanderers; Mrs. Warren's Profes-
sion. This last was given by the Stage
Society at the New Lyric Theatre, Jan-
uary 5, 1902. Given Hyperion Theatre,
New Haven, Oct. 27 ; Garrick Theatre, New
York, Oct. 30, 1905, for one night only.

1894. April 21. Avenue Theatre. Arms and
THE Man. Was also given by Mr. Mans-
field at the Herald Square Theatre, New
York, September 17, 1894. December 8,
1904, given at the Deutsches Theater,
Berlin, as " Helden.''

\/ 1894. Written for Mr. Mansfield, but not acted

n . at the time. Candida. Given at Princess

i\y Theatre, New York, December 9, 1903, and

at the Court Theatre, on April 26, 1904.

Given at the Konigliches Schauspielhaus,

Dresden, November 19, 1903.

1895. Written but not publicly given. The Man

OF Destiny. Given by the American
218

APPENDIX 219

Academy of Dramatic Arts at the Empire
Theatre, New York, February 16, 1899,
and at the Neues Theater, Berlin, Feb-
ruary 10, 1904, as "Der Schlachten-
lenker."

1896. Written but not pubhcly given. Yoir
Never Can Tell. Given at the Strand
Theatre in 1900. Given January 9, 1905,
at the Garrick Theatre, New York.

The above seven plays were published
1898 as " Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant."

1897. October 1. Bleecker Hall, Albany. The
Devil's Disciple. September S6, 1899,
at the Princess of Wales' Theatre, and at
the Berliner Theater, November 25, 1904<,
under the name " Ein Teufelskerl."

«i ooo A 4.1 ( Cjesar and Cleopatra. )

1898. Apparently ] ^ ^ , f
^ort/^ r • '^ Captain Brassbound s >•

1899. not given. J ^ (

° (^ Conversion. J

The above three plays were published
1900 as " Three Plays for Puritans."

1903. Published. Man and Superman. Given
at the Hudson Theatre, New York, Sep-
tember 4, 1905.

1904. September 26. Berkeley Lyceum, New
York. How He Lied to Her Husband.

1904. October. Court Theatre. John Bull's
Other Island. Given at the Garrick
Theatre, New York, October 10, 1905.

1906. November 28. Major Barbara. Court
Theatre, London.

STEPHEN PHILLIPS

1899. Published. Paolo and Feancesca: A
Tragedy in Four Acts. Given at the St.
James Theatre, March 7, 190^.

1900. October 31. Her Majesty's Theatre, Lon-
don. Herod: A Tragedy. Given at the
Vereinigten Stadttheater, Essen - Dort-
mund, September 29, 1905.

1902. February 1. Her Majesty's Theatre, Lon-
don. Ulysses: A Drama in a Prologue
and Three Acts. Also given at the Gar-
den Theatre, New York, September 14*,
1902.

1904. Published. The Sin of David. Given at
the Stadttheater, Diisseldorf, September
30, 1905.

22a

MAURICE MAETERLINCK

The dates given, except the last two, are those
of publication. As the plays were not imme-
diately performed, I have added a few dates of
first performances in various countries, but the
list is very incomplete.

1892.

L'Intrus. ^ The first two given by

Les Aveugles. [ the American Acad-
Les Sept j emy of Dramatic Arts

Princesses. J at the Berkeley Ly-
ceum, New York, Feb-
ruary 21, 1893, and
January 18, 1894,
respectively.
1893. PelliSas et Md^lisande. Given at Prince
of Wales' Theatre, London, June 21, 1898 ;
at Victoria Theatre, New York, January
28, 1902 ; at Opera Comique, Paris, May,
:1902, as a lyric drama with music by
Charles Debussy.

^21

222

APPENDIX

1894f.

1896.
1901.

1901.
1902.

1903.

iNTifcEIEUR.

AlLADINE ET PAIiAMIDES.

Both given at the Carnegie Lyceum
by the American Academy, February
18, 1896.
La Mort de Tintagiles. Given on the
Sezessionsbiihne, Berhn, November 12y
1900.

AgLAVAINE ET S:ftliYSETTE.

Aeiane ET Barbe BiiEtjE ; ou, La Deli-
vrance Inutile. Conte en trois actes.
S(EUR Beatrice. Miracle en trois actes.
May 17. Nouveau Theatre, Paris. Monna
Vanna. Piece en trois actes. Given at
the Konigliches Schauspielhaus, Munich,
September 27, 1902. It was forbidden in
London. In America it has been seen in
German at the Irving Place Theatre, New
York, and in English at the Manhattan
Theatre, October 23, 1905.
May 20. Theatre du Gymnase. Joy-
ZEiii^E: Piece en cinq actes.

INDEX

INDEX

"Abcilles, Les," 174, 175

Academy of Dramatic Arts,
American, 205, 207, 210,
219, 221

Academy, The French, re-
ception of M. Rostand in-
to, 12, 14, 90

Addison, 91

iEschylus, 185

" Aglavaine et Selysette,"
165, 221

"Aiglon, LV 15, 36, 139,
181, 197, 206; its hero, 31,
32, 35, 51, 197

** Alladine et Palamides,"

165, 221
Alladine, 168

Alma in " Die Ehre," 66, 67,

76
•* Amazons, The," 215
"Ambassador, The," 90, 99
Annunzio, D', 7, 189
Anna Mahr, in " Einsame

Menschen," 39, 57
Antoine, M., 208
" Antony and Cleopatra,"

103
"Ariane et Barbe Bleue,"

166, 168, 222
Ariane, 166, 167, 171

225

Arielle in "Joyzelle," 170
Arimanes in " Manfred," 136
Aristotle, 180, 199, 200, 202
"Arme Heinrich, Der," 58,

209
"Arms and the Man," 106-

109, 117, 218
Artagnan, D', 22, 23, 24, 26
Arthur, King, 36
Astarte in "Manfred," 136,

138
"Aveugles, Les," 159, 162,

221

Balzac, 23, 117

Beate in "Es lebe das Le^

ben," 78, 81
Belasco, Mr. David, 15
Bellang^re in "La Mort de

Tintagiles," 168
" Benefit of the Doubt, The,"

216
Bernard Shaw, see Shaw,

George Bernard
Bernhardt, Mme. Sarah, 10,

35, 155, 206; in " Magda,"

70, 71 ; as M^lissande, 205 ;

as Photine, 205
Bertrand in "La Princesse

Lointaine," 19

£26

INDEX

"Biberpelz, Das," 40, 208

Blake, symbolism of, 55

Boehme, 154

Booth, Edwin, 140

Boswell, 13

" Boys and Girls," 213

Brand, 55

Browning, Robert, 36, 127,

142, 143, 144, 197
Bulthaupt on Graf Trast, 67
Burgess, Mr., in " Candida,"

110
Burgoyne, Gen., in " The

Devil's Disciple," 118
Byron, 23, 144; and Rome,

81; his plays, 127

« Cabinet Minister, The," 215

"Caesar and Cleopatra," 219

Caesar, 118

Camille, 195

CampbeU, Mrs. Patrick, as
Magda, 70; in " Pelleas et
Melisande," 164; in "The
Second Mrs. Tanqueray,"
216

"Candida," 9, 109-116, 118,
124, 181, 189, 218

Candida, 111, 117

" Captain Brassbound*s Con-
version," 219

Carlyle, 113, 154

Chateaubriand, 2

Cleopatra in "Caesar and
Cleopatra," 118

"Comedie Humaine," 23

Coleridge, 127

" College Crampton," 41, 208

" Coriolanus," 43

Courtney, Mr. W. L., 176, 177

Craigie, Mrs., 90; and Pi-

nero, 99, 100
Criticism, standards of, 1-3;

theatrical, 6, 8; current, 7;

dramatic, 8
Croker, in " Iris," 96
Crosbie, Mrs., in " Letty," 87
" Cyrano de Bergerac," 15,

21, 22, 26, 30, 36, 56, 181,

183, 196, 205
Cyrano de Bergerac, 26, 35,

51, 193, 265; significance,

22-29

" Daisy's Escape," 212

Daly, Augustin, 85

Daly, Arnold, alluded to, 102

" Dandy Dick," 214

Dangers, Lord, in "The
Profligate," 87

" Dawn, The," 46

Deaconess in " Hanneles
Himmelfahrt," 46

"Devil's Disciple, The," 219

Dickens, 23; in "A Tale of
Two Cities," 47

" Doll's House, A," 193

Don Quixote, 33

"Doom of Devorgoil, The,"
127

" Double Garden, The," 172

Drama, personal character of
the, 3; effects of, 9, 10;
power to present ideas, 122,
123; poetic, 126; Eliza-
bethan, 127, 142, 181; of

INDEX 227

the 19th century, 127; ex- "Florian Geyer," 46, 47, Q09

tempore, 14; classic, 142, Fiske, Mrs., in " Magda," 70>

181; French, 142, 181; 71

Chinese, 142; Japanese, Fitch, Mr. Clyde, 7, 15

142 " Forbidden Fruit," 213

Dramatic figures, 10, 35, 39, Fox, George, 153

43, 44, 51, 175 France, Anatole, 3, 4

Dramatic moments, 35, 138, Francesca, 145

139, 140 " Frau Sorge," 74

Dramatic poetry, 142-144 Freie Buhne, Die, 207, 208

" Drei Reihefeder, Die," 211 " Friedensfest, Das," 39, 20T

Dumas, Alexandre, 22 " Fritzchen," 211

Dumas, Alexandre, fils, 23, "Fuhrmann Henschel," 56,

90, 195 57, 209

Duse, Signora, in " Magda," Fulda, Ludwig, 206

70, 71

"Gay Lord Quex, The," 95,

Ebbsmith, Mrs., 195 216

Eckhard, 154 " Genossin, Die," 216

** Ehre, Die," 66, 71, 76, 95, George Eliot, 23

210 George Sand, 22

« Einakter, Drei," 211 " Ghosts," 97

" Einsame Menschen," 39, 207 " Giaconda," 189

Eliot, George, 23 Globe Theatre, 132

"Elizabethan drama," 127, Gloria in "You Never Can

142, 181 Tell," 109

Emerson, 154, 202 " Gluck im Winkel, Das," 210

" Es lebe das Leben," 78, Gottwald in " Hanneles Him-

181, 211 melfahrt," 46

" Ewigmannliche, Das," 211 Guido in "Monna Vanna,"^

169, 170

Falstaif, 35 Guise, Duke of, 156, 159^

" Fantastics, The," 205 Gulliver, 114

Farce, 14 « Guv'nor, The," 213
Faust, 33

Ferdinand in " The Tem- Halbe, Max, 39, 75

pest," 35 " Hamlet," 63, 94, 125, 140,

Flaubert, 23 185, 198

INDEX

Hamlet, 31, 33, 133, 156

Hannele, 44

^"Hanneles Himmelf ahrt,"

44-47, 60, 208
Hare, Mr. John, 212, 216
Hartmann von Aue, 58
" Haubenlerclre, Die," 66
Hauptmann, Gerhardt.
His becoming known, 37;
•earlier influences, 39, 40;
a realist, 39, 43; Protean
character, 41; an individu-
alist, 57, 58, 75, 79; sym-
bolism in, 55 ; " Vor Son-
nenaufgang," 38, 39, 207;
" Das Friedensfest," 39,
207; "Einsame Menschen,"
39, 207; "Die Weber," 40,
208; "Das Biberpelz," 40,
208; "College Crampton,"
41, 208; "Hanneles Him-
melfahrt," 44-47, 60, 208;
""Florian Geyer," 46, 47,
508; * "Die versunkene
Glocke," 47-55, 188, 189,
208; '"Furhmann Hen-
schel," 56, 209; " Schluck
imd Jau," 56, 209; "Mi-
chael Kramer," 57, 209;
"Der rote Hahn," 57, 209;
"Der arme Heinrich," 58,
59, 209; " Rose Bernd," 57,
209; and Rostand, 43; and
Sudermann, 39, 69, 63, 70,
75; and Bernard Shaw,
121; and Maeterlinck, 162;
plays, 207-209
Hawthorne, 32, 173

Hazlitt, 3, 130, 139
HefFterdingt, Pastor, ia

"Heimat," 71, 77
"Heimat," 70, 71, 77, 189,

210
Heinrich in " Die versunkene

Glocke," 50-52, 53, 60, 61,

188
Heinrich von Aue in "Der

arme Heinrich," 58, 59
" Helden," 218
" Henry V.," 183
Herder, 2
Heredia, 139
" Hernani," 22, 26
"Herod," 86, 126, 134, 140,

144, 220
"Hester's Mystery," 212
" Hobby Horse, The," 214
Holmes, 135
Homer, 180
" Honour," 210
Hosea, 4

" How He Lied to Her Hus-
band," 219
Howells, extract from "The

Story of a Play," 83

Ibsen, 7, 39, 44, 92, 95, 105,

176, 193
Idas in " Marpessa," 140
"Imprudence," 213
Individualism, 79
" Interieur," 166, 221
"Intrus, L'," 159, 161, 162,

166, 221
" Iris," 89, 95, 96, 194, 217
Iris, 89, 97, 194

INDEX

^29

Irving Place Theatre, 48,

205, 207, 209
Isaiah, 4
Ivanhoe, 26

Job, 33

"Johannes," 211

" Johannisfeuer," 211

"John BuU's Other Island,"

219
John Oliver Hobbes, 90
Jones, H. A., 84, 98
" JoyzeUe," 170-172, 222
Joyzelle, 171, 172
Judith, 172
Juliet 17, 34, 191

Kahn, M. Gustave, 14, 15
Kane, Archibald, in " Iris,"

96
Katharsis, 200
Keats, quoted, 34, 165;

opinions, 50, 180; drama,

127
Kendal, Mr. and Mrs., 212,

215
" King Lear," 130
Kipling, 108
Klopstock, 91

"Lady Bountiful," 215

Lamb, 130

Landscape, 5

Lear, 34

Leonora in "Die Ehre," 76

Lessing, 91

"Letty," 87, 95, 96, 97, 217

Letty, 88

Letchmere in " Letty," 87-89

Literary plays, 90

" Lonely Lives," 207

Lord Chamberlain's Men, 132

Lord Quex, 95

" Lords and Commons," 213

" Low Water," 213

Lowell, 135

Ludicrous, the, 192

Macaulay, 13

" Macbeth," 94

Macready, 143

" Madame Bovary," 23

Maeterlinck, Maubice. In-
troduction to the world of
letters, 147; early dialogue,
148; early manner, 150,
151; philosophy, 152-155;
earlier dramatic theory,
155-158; application in
earlier plays, 159, 160;
symbolism, 165, 173, 174;
fundamental idea, 171 ;
" La Princesse Maleine,"
159, 160, 161, 221; quoted,
148, 149; "L'Intrus," 159,
161, 166, 221; " Les Aveu-
gles," 159, 160, 221; "Les
Sept Princesses," 159, 160,
161, 221; " Pell^as et M61i-
sande," 161-165, 221; " Al-
ladine et Palamides," 165,
221; "Aglavaine et S^ly-
sette," 165, 221; " In-
terieur," 166, 221; "La
Mort de Tintagiles," 47,
165, 221; "Soeur Bea-

230

INDEX

trice," 166, 225; " Ariane et Marie in " Heimat," 73

Barbe Bleue," 166-168, 222; Marius, 155, 159

" Monna Vanna," 168-170, " Marpessa," quoted, 141

224; " JoyzeUe," 170, 171, Marpessa, 140

922; "Le Tr^sor des Matthews, Brander, quota-
Humbles," 152, 153, 154; tion from, 35, 92, 183

"Les Abeilles," 174; "The
Double Garden," 172; and
Rostand, 162; and Haupt-
mann, 162; and Stephen
Phillips, 162; plays, 221,
222

"Magda," 70, 210. See
"Heimat"

Magda in "Heimat," 70-73,
210 ; and Anna Mahr, 39

" Mauprat," 23
Melisande, 168
M^lissande in " La Princess©

Lointaine," 19, 20, 205
Melodrama, 14
Merlin in "Joyzelle,;" 170,

171
Metchnikoff, 187
Metternich in " L'Aiglon,"

32

"Magistrate, The," 91, 213, "Michael Kramer," 57, 209

" Midsummer Night's Dream,
A," 130

214
Maldonado in " Iris," 89, 96

"Man and Superman," 109, Miranda in "The Tempest,"

117-120, 124, 219 35

" Man and His Picture, The," Mirbeau, M. Octave, 147

210

' Monna Vanna," 168-170,

" Man of Destiny, The," 218 222

" Man with the Glove, The," " Monte Cristo," 23

139
" Manfred," 55, 136-138
Mandeville, Mr., in " Letty,"

88
Mansfield, Mr. Richard, 206,

218

"Money Spinner," 212

Moliere, 41, 44, 91

Morell, Rev. James in " Can-
dida," 109-111, 114, 116,
123

Morelli, 2

Marchbanks in " Candida," " Morituri," 211

111-113, 114, 115, 189
Marco in "Monna Vanna,"

168-170
Marguerite Gautier in "La

Morris, Miss Clara, quoted,

85
" Mort de Tintagiles, La," 47,

165, 221

Dame aux Camelias," 23, " Mrs. Warren's Profession,"

195

106, 123, 218

INDEX

231

" Mutter Erde," 39
Mystics, 153-155

Naturalists, 19
Naturalismus, 62
Newcome, Colonel, 33
Neo-realism, 117
" Nero," 920
Nickelmann, The, in "Die

versunkene Glocke," 48,

189
Nietzsche, 105
Nordau, Max, 148
*' Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith,

The," 93, 216
Novalis, 152

OtheUo, 156

"Paolo and Francesca," 144,
145, 290

Pantomime, 14

" Paracelsus," 142

Pastor in " Die versunkene
Glocke," 52

Pater, Walter, 3

"Pauline," 142

"P^U^as et Melisande," 161-
164, 165, 171, 181, 221

Pelleas, 172

Percinet in "Les Roman-
esques," 17-19

" Philanderers, The," 105,
118, 218

Phillips, Stephen, 126,
127, 134, 145; and the
poetic drama, 126-128,
134-136; his language, 141;
" Herod," 86, 126, 134, 140,

290; "Ulysses," 130, 220;
" Paolo and Francesca,"
144, 145, 220; "The Sin
of David," 220; "Nero,"
220; "Marpessa," 141;
plays, 220

" Philoctetes," 136

Phosphorus, 202

Photine in "La Samari-
taine," 205

Piers the Ploughman, 114

"Pilgrim's Progress, The,"
200

PiNEEO, Arthur Wing.
Stagecraft, 83-87; dra-
matic art, 87-89; literary
character, 89-91 ; specific
genre, 91 ; so-called " prob-
lem plays," 92-95, 183,
194; a dramatist, 98; an
actor, 913; "Two Hun-
dred a Year," 219;
"Daisy's Escape," 912;
"Hester's Mystery," 212;
"Bygones," 212; "The
Money Spinner," 912 ;
"Imprudence," 213; "The
Squire," 213; "The Rec-
tor," 213; "Boys and
Girls," 213; "The Rocket,"
213; "Lords and Com-
mons," 213; "Low Water,"
213; "The Weaker Sex,"
213, 914 ; " The Magistrate,"
91, 913; "The Schoolmis-
tress," 914; "The Hobby
Horse," 914; "Dandy
Dick," 914; " Sweet Laven-

INDEX

der," 91, 214; " The Profli-
gate," 87, 93, 214; "The
Cabinet Minister," 215 ;
"Lady Bountiful," 215;
"The Times," 215; "The
Amazons," 215; "The Sec-
ond Mrs. Tanqueray," 91,
93, 215; "The Notorious
Mrs. Ebbsmith," 93, 216;
" The Benefit of the Doubt,"
216; "The Princess and the
Butterfly," 99, 216; " Tre-
lawney of the Wells," 216;
" The Gay Lord Quex," 95,
216; "Iris," 89, 95, 96, 97,
194, 217; "Letty," 87, 95,
96, 97, 217; " A Wife with-
out a Smile," 217; and
Robertson, 98, 99; and
Mrs. Craigie, 99; and
Bernard Shaw, 120; plays,
212-217

Playgoing, effects of, 3, 4, 9

"Plays, Pleasant and Un-
pleasant," 219

" Plays for Puritans, Three,"
219

Plotinus, 153

Poe, 180

Poetry, in public, 135 ; on the
stage, 133, 134

Pope, 10, 200

Preese, Janet, in " The Prof-
ligate," 87

"Princess and the Butter-
fly, The," 99, 216

" Princesse Lointaine, La,"
19, 196, 205

" Princesse Maleine, La," 148,

159, 160, 161, 221
Problem plays, 92-95, 194,

195
"Profligate, The," 87, 99,

214
" Prometheus Bound," 185,

198
Prossy, Miss, in "Candida,'*

9, 116

Raina in "Arms and the

Man," 107
Rautendelein in " Die ver-

sunkene Glocke," 49, 50, 5S
Ravenswood, Master of, 26
Realism, 25
Realismus, 62

Realists, 19; mode of pres-
entation, 42
Reaumer, 174
" Rector, The," 213
Reichstadt, Due de, 32, 197
Rembrandt, 139
" Remorse," 127
Renshaw, Dunstan, in "The

Profligate," 87
Robert in "Die Ehre," 66,

67, 69, 76
Robertson and Pinero, 98,

99
" Rocket, The," 213
Rougon-Macquart Family, 23
Romance, 18, 26
" Romanesques, Les," 16, 17
Romanticists, 32; mode of

presentation, 43
Romeo, 17, 191

INDEX

« Romeo and Juliet," 12^»
129, 191

« Rose Bernd," 57, 209

Rostand, Edmond. Re-
ception into the Academy,
12; position in literature,
13; mode of presenting
truth, 19; success in ro-
manticism, 25 ; so-called
pessimism, 29, 33; kind of
romanticism, 32 ; content
with dramatic effect, 35;
no problems, 35, 92, 183;
no criticism of life, 35, 92,
183; idea of tragedy, 196,
197; "Les Romanesques,"
16-18, 205; "La Princesse
Lointaine," 19-21, 196, 205;
" La Samaritaine," 21, 205 ;
" Cyrano de Bergerac," 22-
30, 196, 205; "L'Aiglon,"
30-32, 197, 206; and Haupt-
mann, 37, 43, 51; and
Sudermann, 65, 81; an^
Bernard Shaw, 121; arm
Maeterlinck, 47, 162; plays,
205, 206

** Rote Hahn, Der," 209

Roxane in " Cyrano de Ber-
gerac," 29

Rudel in "La Princesse
Lointaine," 19, 35, 51, 196

Ruskin, 3, 4

Ruysbroeck, 154

Sainte-Beuve, 2

" Samaritaine, La," 21, 205

Sand, George, 22

Sardanapaltis^ 127

Sartorius, M., in "Wid*
owers' Houses," 123

" Schlachtenlenker, Der," 219

"Schluck und Jau," 57, 209

" Schmetterlingsschlacht^
Die," 211

" School," 99

" Schoolmistress, The*" 214

Schwartze, Lieutenant Col-
onel, in "Heimat," 72, 81

Scott, 18, 23, 127

" Second Mrs. Tanqueray,
The," 91, 93, 176, 181, 215,
216

Selysette, 168

" Sept Princesses, Les," 159,.
160, 161, 221

Shakespeare, 2, 4, 29, 31, 44,
85, 102, 103, 128, 131, 132,
136, 147, 180, 184

Shandy, Mr., 193

Sharpe, Mr. William, 151

3haw, George Bernard.
~^^ Stagecraft, 102 ; ideas,.
104; how presented, 122,
124; realism, 108; neo*»
realism, 117; realistic bril-
liancy, 120, 121; "Wid-
owers' Houses," 105, 123,
218; "The Philanderers,"
106, 118, 218; "Mrs. War-
ren's Profession," 106, 123,.
218; " Arms and the Man,"
106, 108, 218; "You
Never Can Tell," 109, 118,
229; "Candida," 109-116,
218; "The Man of'Des-

INDEX

tiny," 218; "The Devirs
Disciple," 219 ; " Caesar and
Cleopatra," 219; "Captain
Brassbound's Conversion,"
519; " Man and Superman,"
109, 117-120, 124, 219;
"How He Lied to Her
Husband," 219; "John
Bull's Other Island," 219;
and Rostand, 121; and
Hauptmann, 121 ; and
Sudermann, 121; and Pi-
nero, 120; and Shake-
speare, 102; plays, 218,
219

Shelley, 127

Sheridan, 91, 127

** Sin of David, The," 220

**Sistine Madonna," 180

" Sodom's Ende," 68, 71, 76,
95, 97, 139, 210

" Soeur Beatrice," 166, 222

Sophocles, 2

" Sordello," 143

Sorismonde in " La Princesse
Lointaine," 19, 20

Sothern, Mr. Edward, 48,
191, 209

Spielhagen, 38

Squarciafico in " La Princesse
Lointaine," 20

"Squire, The," 213

Stage, The, a public place,
100; of Shakespeare, 103

Stagecraft, 83-86, 102, 103

Stage Society, The, 218

Stael, Mme. de, 2

Stevenson, 23, 26, 42

"Strafford," 143

Straker, 'Enery, in "Man
and Superman," 123

Strindberg, 7

"Story of a Play, The,"
quoted, 83

" Sturmgeselle SokrateSy

Der," 211

Sudermann, Heinrich.
General critical opinion on,
62; general character, 63;
a personal writer, 64; his
motives, 65 ; his " dramatic
theme," 75; no especial in-
dividualist, 79; impression
of his power, 80, 81 ; " Die
Ehre," 66-68, 71, 76, 95,
210; "Sodom's Ende,"
68-70, 71, 76, 95, 97, 210;
"Heimat," 70, 73, 77, 95,
210; "Die Schmetterlings-
schlacht, 211; "Das Gluck
im Winkel," 211; " Mori-
turi," 211; "Teja," 211;
"Fritzchen," 211; "Das
Ewig Mannliche," 211 ;
"Johannes," 211; "Die
Drei Reihefeder," 211;
" Johannisfeuer," 211 ; " Es
lebe das Leben," 71, 78,
211 ; " Der Sturmgeselle
Sokrates," 64, 211; "Frau
Sorge," 74; and Haupt-
mann, 39, 62, 63, 70, 75;
and Wildenbruch, 62; and
Bernard Shaw, 121; plays,
210, 211

"Sweet Lavender," 91, 214

INDEX

Swinburne, 127

Sylvette in "Les Roman-
esques," 17-19

Symbolism, nature of, 55; in
"Die versunkene Glocke,"
50, 56; of Blake, 55; of
Maeterlinck, 159, 173, 174

Taine, 2

"Tale of Two Cities, The,"
47

Tanqueray, Mrs., 9, 195

Tate, Nahum, 35

" Teja," 211

Tennyson, 36, 143, 144, 197;
his plays, 127

Teufelsdroeckh, 29, 114

« Teufelskerl, Ein," 219

Thackeray, 23, 113, 117

Theatre, French, 135

Theatrical criticism, 6, 8

Tolstoi, 38, 39, 41

" Three Musketeers, The,"
23

" Times, The," 215

" Tisserands, Les," 208

Tragedy. The great thing in
literature, 33-35, 180; Mr.
Courtney on, 176; Words-
worth on, 177; Aristotle on,
199; simplest notion of,
186; range of, 188; its true
character, 188-190, 198; ef-
fect of, 200-202; in love,
191; of Browning, 178; of
Rostand, 196; of Pinero,
194; in "Die versunkene
Glocke," 188

Tragic figures, 34, 81
Trast, Graf, in " Die Ehre,'*

67, 76, 124
Tree, Mr. Beerbohm, 86, 12^,

134, 140
"Trelawney of the Wells,"

216
Trench, in "Widowers'

Houses," 123
Trenwith in " Iris," 95
" Tristan und Isolde," 139
TroUope, Anthony, 26^
"Two Hundred a Year,"

212

« Ulysses," 130, 144, 220
Uncle Toby, My, 193

Valentine!, in "You Never

Can Tell," 109
Vanna, Monna, 169, 170, 171,

172
Verhaeren, 46
" Versunkene Glocke, Die,"

9, 46, 47, 56, 181, 208
Vivien in "Mrs. Warren's

Profession," 123
Voltaire, 91
" Vor Sonnenauf gang," 38,

207

Wagner, 105

"Weaker Sex, The," 213,

214
Weber and Fields burlesque,

14
" Weber, Die," 40, 58, 208
Weyman, Stanley, 25

236 INDEX

Whistler, 42 Wyndham, Mr. (now Sir

«V/idowers' Houses," 105, Charles), 206

123, 218

Wilderbruch, 62, 63, 66 Yeats, Mr. W. B., 7

Willy Janikow in " Sodom's Ygraine in " La Mort de

Ende," 69, 77, 81 Tintagiles," 166, 168

Winter, Mr. William, 214 " You Never Can Tell," 109,

Wittich in " Die versunkene 118, 219

Glocke," 49

Wordsworth, 127, 177 Zenobia, 174

" Wife without a Smile, A," Zimmermann, Dr., 40

217 Zola, 20, 23, 38, 39, 41

THE END

TJMT VE'R ^"^

14 DAY USE

RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED |

LOAN DEPT.

This book is due on the last date stamped below, or

on the date to which renewed.

Renewed books are subject to immediate recall.

^^^'SQMti

<yrrm t^-

vrv

1 AF^'SSjr^'

B^

"pn

#4

%^

H0V2ftt965

02

^EC'o

CD

%29

165

"Mat

LD 21A-50m-4,'59
(A1724sl0)476B

General Library

University of California

Berkeley

rB 1441 ;

I) (, Bl RKILf Y LIBRARIES

CD7S7aDMbD

V

i^

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY